LONDON — As schools around the world close their doors in an effort to halt the spread of the new coronavirus, the team behind the Education Outcomes Fund is optimistic it can still launch later in 2020, after two years in the making.
Around 90% of the world’s enrolled students are now out of school due to the pandemic. While schools in high-income countries are doing their best to teach kids online, students who do not have regular access to the internet are missing out on classes altogether.
That threatens to worsen the learning gap between countries. Even before COVID-19, 53% of children in low- and middle-income countries could not read and understand a simple text by age 10, according to the World Bank.