School closures hit hard in Africa, report says

Pandemic-induced disruptions to schooling in Africa have hit particularly hard in the southern and eastern parts of the continent, a United Nations report says.

On average, schools in the regions had been fully closed for 22 weeks by February, and about half of the countries saw full school closures beyond the global average of 20 weeks, according to the report released last week. In Uganda, schools were closed for 92 weeks, among the longest in the world.

In total, school children in the regions have lost 150 billion hours of in-person learning due to the closures, the report by UNESCO said.

The pandemic has also increased inequality in access to education in many African countries, the report showed.

In Kenya, children in primary schools using online tutoring platforms lost an equivalent of three and a half months of learning, with larger losses for students in hardship areas and rural schools where internet access is not available, the report said. In South Africa, the learning losses were 27 percent higher for girls than for boys among Grade 4 students, it said.

Economic loss

Long school closures will also have long-term economic effects, and current students in sub-Saharan Africa may lose a combined $500 billion in future earnings, said the report.

Bernadette Nangira, a secondary school teacher at Mundika Secondary School in western Kenya, said that the closure of learning institutions affected students and teachers alike.

"The fact that schools were closed for extended periods led to challenges on economic and social issues including interrupted and loss of learning, financial constraints on households, homelessness, poor childcare and sexual exploitation, especially to the underprivileged children in the urban centers," Nangira said.

Nangira said a major challenge administrators faced once schools were reopened was keeping the students safe, since schools in Kenya reopened in January last year while the coronavirus was still raging.

"Once schools were opened, managing the students was a bit complex. There was the new norm and we had to find a way of making things work. Social distancing was quite a challenge especially to the younger students who could not even understand why they were restrained against physical touch," Nangira said.

The report by UNESCO also noted some of the measures taken by African countries to return learning to normalcy.

In South Sudan and Uganda, authorities have adapted a condensed curriculum focused on core content and subjects in order to catch up. In Eritrea, schools are supported in safe reopening through the provision of guidelines, said the report.