From the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic to the increasing instability and forced displacement caused by conflict and climate change, delivering access to essential services including health care and education has become fraught with new challenges.
Hard-won improvements in education are now especially at risk. Between 1999 and 2019 the percentage of children not accessing primary education halved. But Education Cannot Wait, a United Nations fund, estimates that this year there are up to 222 million children globally who are either not in school, or require additional support because they are not reaching proficiencies in literacy and numeracy. Only 1 in 10 “crisis-impacted children attending primary or secondary education are actually meeting proficiency standards,” according to ECW.
Graham Lang, chief of education at ECW, told Devex that in cases of forced displacement children have “invariably moved to a place that in most contexts doesn’t have a solid education system in place.” On top of this systemic barrier, children struggle to learn because of the trauma they’ve been through, Lang added. “You’ve really got to ensure they are in a safe, protected environment before they can start learning.”
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