COVID-19, connectivity and its effect on education globally.
Inequality is growing as students struggle to connect remotely to education.
For those of us with school attending children the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown taught us a lot about education. Educating our children is perhaps something that we took for granted. It turns out to be much more difficult than we thought and is certainly something that we won’t take for granted again. And, that is for those of us who were lucky enough to have the tools to deliver education remotely from home. Many families simply don’t have the computing or connectivity.
The numbers impacted students globally are staggering.
1.53 billion learners are out of school
184 countries have closed their entire school systems.
87.6% of the world’s total enrolled learners have been affected
Worldwide, education is one route for children, families and communities to escape poverty. If you remove that opportunity you remove hope and the effects can be catastrophic.
Working with our partner in Colombia there have been 14,000 students identified in Medellin who have dropped off the education radar. If you remove the prospect of an education, jobs, careers you also remove the path out of poverty and the option for adolescents to make good choices for their future. It doesn’t take a genius to work out what choice is left for those children in a city famed for narcotics. The detrimental effects are far reaching, not only in Medellin and Colombia but also internationally.
Closer to home, not every household in the UK has the right technology to facilitate home learning. One laptop and one slow connection being used by a working parent and two children doesn’t enable effective learning. Even if schools have the ability to create online learning, and many don’t, access to online learning requires students to have the facilities to access it. A polling of teachers showed that in the most deprived UK schools, 15% of teachers reported that more than a third of their students would not have access to an adequate device for learning from home, and 12% reported the same for internet access. That is in the UK, the world’s 6th largest economy!
The long term economic effects of the global 2020 homeschooling situation remains to be seen. However, initial reports suggest a widening of inequality and the digital divide amongst students. It also impacts impoverished parents disadvantaged as they are forced into the role of teacher.
theunconnected.org are looking to change that. Help us to keep students within school curriculums around the world. We provide data connectivity, handsets and tablets to students and families to help bridge the digital divide.
