In the last twelve months schools have been closed across the world for 46% of this period. Over half of them – over 800 million – are still facing huge disruptions to their learning: in 31 countries schools are still closed and in 48 other countries the setor has only received 0.78% of Covid relief financial support packages. Coupled with this aid for education projects is going to decline by 12% due to the pandemic. Worse still is that according to UNESCO there will be an “increase (in) the funding gap for education by one third to as much as $200 billion annually in low and middle-income countries”. The situation was given some relief when in October 2020 at the Global Education Meeting organised by UNESCO “governments and partners committed to protect education budgets and to focus the recovery on the safe and inclusive re-opening of schools, and support for teachers, skills development and connectivity for all”. But for now teachers must be vaccinated and help make schools as safe as possible.
