The possible long-term socio-economic impact of the protracted absence of the majority of the region’s children from school could be sufficient to require countries to rethink their entire education systems by creating linkages between education and other sectors and placing the highest possible priority on the protection of education budgets, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) says in its Latin America and the Caribbean COVID-19 policy document.
The document seeks to address the likely impact and implications for Latin America and the Caribbean on the prolonged schools closure on countries and economies in the region.
And the UNDP says in its study that the full impact of the pandemic on the region’s respective education systems could well be sufficiently serious as to require not just the promoting of increased cooperation between and among countries in the region, but also the specific intensification of cooperation between and amongst their respective education sectors. The crisis, the study asserts, could provide an opportunity to completely rethink the entire education system and to build one that closes existing inequalities and enables all children and adolescents in the region to reach their full potential. It insists, however, that the realisation of that goal will require a long-term vision for managing the current emergency that must investment in rebuilding an education system that ensures access to learning for all students, particularly the most vulnerable.
Up until now there has been no public indication of a collective response to the UNDP’s recommendations – made since August 2020 – by countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, the area covered by the study. However, with no country in the region, so far, having been able to effect a full and sustained return to the classroom, the UNDP study continues to come into an increasingly sharper focus.
What makes the August 2020 study (UNDP LAC C19 PDS No. 20) highly deserving of the attention of regional governments is that, in many instances, it explores the gap between what governments in the region have done and what they can still do to respond to what has become a crisis facing most countries in the region and which extends into the realm of countries’ overall development.
The study says that while governments in the region have implemented distance-learning strategies intended to maintain a degree of continuity in children’s and adolescents’ learning and well-being, these solutions have been unevenly implemented across countries (this is particularly the case in countries like Guyana) and may even have had the effect of exacerbating hitherto existing gaps in the ‘distribution’ of education resources and in the levels of learning.
Asserting that even in the circumstance of the pandemic governments have a responsibility to focus on guaranteeing children’s and adolescents’ learning and well-being, UNDP is urging governments in the region to focus on four specific ‘priority areas’ for the eventual normalisation of their respective national school systems.
Specifically, the UN agency is urging governments to begin to fashion a plan for “the urgent re-opening of schools.” Secondly, it wants governments to develop a strategy to ensure learning for all students in the new context where all classes will not be characterised by face-to-face communication; thirdly, the UNDP is seeking the preservation of the protective role of schools and the restoration of the various services that would have been disrupted, and finally it wants to see schools resuming their responsibility for ensuring the emotional well-being of the education community, including teachers and parents. An adjusted vision, the UNDP says, may well result in the creation of a system that closes long-standing inequalities and enables all children and adolescents in the region to reach their full potential.
Asserting that one of the most demanding challenges to salvaging the education system in the region reposes in ensuring that all students stay in school and remain connected to the school system, the UNDP says that governments must move expeditiously to, as far as possible, eliminate economic barriers to education.
And in order to help prevent what may well turn out to be a staggering school dropout rate, the UNDP is calling on governments to improve their student monitoring systems at the individual level. It says that while this may be immediately possible in those education systems in the region that already possess the necessary information management systems to conduct such monitoring, in instances where these do not exist, governments must seek the support of teachers and communities, particularly in rural areas, in designing other monitoring schemes. At the same time the UN agency recommends that Stay in School campaigns be launched in order to communicate the importance of continuing learning at home and remaining connected to the school system.
“Once schools reopen, campaigns should focus on the importance of returning to face-to-face classes and communicate a reassuring message to families about the safety of returning.” These campaigns, the UNDP says, could use mass media such as radio and television, as well as text messages sent directly to families. Education Ministries and local authorities, the agency adds, have a critical role to play in providing the “support and credibility” that such campaigns require. It says that local-level community organizations, as well as adolescents and young people themselves can contribute to implementing information and awareness campaigns in their communities.
Meanwhile, the UNDP says that “minimizing the cost of attending classes” can also contribute to promoting returning to school and preventing dropouts. “Here, efforts should be made to reduce or even eliminate tuition costs for the most vulnerable families and to provide subsidies for expenses such as uniforms, transportation or schoolbooks. There is evidence which suggests that reducing these barriers can incentivise children and adolescents to return to school, as well as prevent future dropouts,” it adds.
The UN agency is also advocating that such cash transfer systems as are currently in place in countries in the region be retained.
