New Delhi: There is no justification now to keep the school closed given the pandemic and even if there is a new wave, the closing school must be the last choice, according to the Director of Global Education in the World Bank Jaime Saavedra.
Saavedra, whose team has tracked the impact of Covid-19 in the education sector, said there was no evidence that the reopening of the school had caused a surge in the Koronavirus case and that the school was not a “safe place”.
He also stressed that it did not make sense from the public policy perspective to wait until the children were vaccinated because there was no “no science” behind it.
“There is no relationship between the opening school and the spread of Coronavirus.
There is no evidence that connects both and there is no justification now to keep the school closed.
Even if there is a new wave of Covid-19, the closing school must be the last choice.,” Saavedra told PTI In an interview from Washington.
“It doesn’t make sense to keep a restaurant, bar, and shopping center open and keep it closed.
There is no reason,” he added.
According to various simulations by the World Bank, health risks for children if schools open low and very high closure fees.
“During 2020, we navigated in the ocean ignorance.
We just don’t know what the best way to fight a pandemic and reaction directly from most countries in the world is let’s close school.
Time has passed since then and with evidence coming from the end of 2020 and 2021, we have several waves and there are several countries that have opened school, “he said.
“We have been able to see whether the opening of the school has an impact on viral transmission and new data shows it is not.
Many countries also have waves when schools are closed so clearly there is no school role in some nails.” Even if children can be infected and with the omicron.
happens but death and serious illness among children is very rare.
The risk for low children and costs is very high, “he added.
Asked about the worries of children who have not been vaccinated, he said,” No country has placed the school conditions reopen only after children are vaccinated.
Because there is no science behind it and it does not make sense from a public policy perspective ” .
Learning poverty means unable to read and understand simple text at the age of 10.
“Learning poverty in India is expected to increase from 55 percent to 70 percent due to leaning leaning and more.
Children outside school.
Customized learning for years of school is expected to fall almost a year full of school while the average annual income may shrink in a pessimistic scenario of nine percent per student in the future.
“In countries like India where inequality in education is common before the pandemic and the level of poverty has been giant, there are many who are at stake.
Almost two years later, the school is still closed for millions of children, and others may not return to school.
“Learning learning that many children who experience morally cannot be accepted.
And the potential for increasing poverty learning may have a destructive impact on future productivity, income, and welfare for the generation of children and adolescents, their families, and the world economy, “he said.
Rationalizing the curriculum, regulating the academic calendar., Preparing the teachers for Big tasks in front are one of the suggestions that the World Bank must reduce long-term learning losses caused by the closing of the school during a pandemic.
“There is a critical need to have more data on learning losses from countries and the countries as a whole.
Ideally this data will be in the form of learning data on students who are personalized because the situation is very heterogeneous at the children’s level.
“It focuses on personalized learning data aligned with best practices, and in line with our current advice we provide to countries.
Again, the numbers we present are World Bank simulations that show what happens if the school system is opened no Being a priority..
These figures can be reversed if the government can act now, “he said.
Report 2020 by the education of the World Bank, titled “Beaten or Broken? Informality and Covid-19 in South Asia”, has predicted that the closure of a prolonged school because the Covid-19 pandemic in India can cause a loss of more than USD 400.
billion in income in the future in front of the country.