This morning, "Save the Children" warned that the novel Coronavirus has caused an "unprecedented educational emergency", with up to 9.7 million children affected by school closures and they might never return again to their classes.
The UNESCO has earlier pointed out that the closures imposed in April in many countries during measures to contain the pandemic has kept 1.6 billion students away from their schools and universities, or about 90 percent of the total number of students in the world.
Now, the British charity said in a report entitled "Save Our Education": "For the first time in human history, an entire generation of children globally have had their education disrupted."
It added that the economic fall-out of the crisis could force an extra 90 to 117 million children into poverty, with a knock-on effect on school admissions.
At the same time, the charity warned the crisis could leave a shortfall of US$77 billion in education budgets in low and middle income countries by the end of 2021.
"Around 10 million children may never return to school - this is an unprecedented education emergency and governments must urgently invest in learning," Save the Children chief executive Inger Ashing said.
The report included 12 countries whose children are at greatest risk of losing education, namely Niger, Mali, Chad, Liberia, Afghanistan, Guinea, Mauritania, Yemen, Nigeria, Pakistan, Senegal and Ivory Coast.
"Instead we are at risk of unparallelled budget cuts which will see existing inequality explode between the rich and the poor, and between boys and girls."
The charity urged governments and donors to invest more funds behind a new global education plan to help children back into school when it is safe and until then support distance learning.
"We know the poorest, most marginalised children who were already the furthest behind have suffered the greatest loss, with no access to distance learning - or any kind of education - for half an academic year," Ashing said.
Follow the latest news on Google News
