Covid widens education gap, Unesco report shows

Winny Bosibori, a Standard Seven pupil at Kionganyo Primary School in Kisii County, reads a science textbook as she boils water to prepare lunch at home. [Sammy Omingo, Standard]

Kenya has been mentioned among a handful of countries that have supported learners after the closure of learning institutions to contain the spread of Covid-19.

A report released by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) on Tuesday indicates that about 40 per cent of low- and lower-middle-income countries have not supported learners at risk of exclusion during the pandemic.

However, the Kenyan Institute for Curriculum Development (KICD) is commended for introducing primary and secondary school lessons on public radio.

Nevertheless, the report noted that the lessons still left out majority of those living in remote areas, the poor, linguistic minorities and learners with disabilities.

Unesco also points out that studies found that among the poorest households in the country, only 30 per cent had access to a radio while none had a television.

The KICD estimates that 47 per cent of learners are accessing lessons through radio, TV or the internet. This means that more than half of the students are not able to access remote lessons, either because they are outside of broadcast range or do not have the necessary equipment.

There has been concern among parents and teachers that majority of learners lack an internet connection to support online learning. 

“But even as governments increasingly rely on technology, the digital divide lays bare the limitations of this approach. Not all students and teachers have access to adequate internet connection, equipment, skills and working conditions to take advantage of available platforms,” said Unesco.

The Global Education Monitoring Report points out how much of the world is still grappling with disparities in education, with children from poor and disadvantaged backgrounds getting the short end of the stick.

Education opportunities, the report warns, continue to be unequally distributed and fewer than 10 per cent of countries have laws that help ensure full inclusion.

The effects of being out of school during the pandemic are especially far-reaching for girls.

Unesco says that analyses of the trend during the Ebola pandemic in West Africa have shown that health crises can leave many behind.

It calls attention to the effects on girls from poor households, many of whom, the report says, may never return to school.

“More time at home exposes them to domestic chores, sexual violence or teenage pregnancy risks,” Unesco said.

Teenage pregnancies

The report comes amid jarring data on teenage pregnancies during the coronavirus pandemic. For example, the Children’s Department in Machakos County estimates that nearly 4,000 school girls have been impregnated.

But Education Executive Lazarus Kivuva disputed the numbers and said they would release their own report on the matter.

With more than 90 per cent of the global student population affected by coronavirus-related school closures, the world is in the throes of the most unprecedented disruption in the history of education, the Unesco report noted.

“Barriers to quality education are still too high for too many learners. Even before Covid-19, one in five children, adolescents and youth were entirely excluded from education. Stigma, stereotypes and discrimination mean millions more are further alienated inside classrooms,” said Unesco director-general Audrey Azoulay.

This year’s is the fourth annual Unesco GEM Report to monitor progress across 209 countries in achieving the education targets adopted by UN member states in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

“Covid-19 has given us a real opportunity to think afresh about our education systems,” said GEM Report director Manos Antoninis.

The number of children in sub-Saharan African countries who are out of school has grown to surpass Asia’s with more than 38 per cent of school-age children in the continent out of school.

The report notes that 258 million children and youth were entirely excluded from education, with poverty as the main obstacle to access.

In at least 20 countries, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, hardly any poor rural young women complete secondary school.

In low- and middle-income countries, adolescents from the richest 20 per cent of all households were three times as likely to complete lower secondary school as were those from the poorest homes.

Among those who did complete lower secondary education, students from the richest households were twice as likely to have basic reading and mathematics skills as those from the poorest households.

According to the 2020 Kenya National Housing and Population Census, about 12 per cent of children of school-going age were not getting any formal education.

The figure was relatively low (1.7 per cent) in children between the ages of 3 and 13, before rising to almost 10 per cent among children between the ages of 14 to 17 years.