Another international report - this one from the World Bank and UNICEF - bodes poorly for post COVID education recovery in Latin America and the Caribbean.
It warns that "Four in Five Children in Latin America and the Caribbean Will Not Be Able to Understand a Simple Text" - and to back up that dire assessment, the report explains that "four in five (standard 4 students) in Latin America and the Caribbean are expected to lack basic reading comprehension proficiency."
The report explains that that "two years of COVID-19 school closures in the region may have set learning outcomes back by more than a decade - and…these learning losses could cost today's students in the region a 12 percent decrease in lifetime earnings."
The report points out that children in Latin America and the Caribbean "experienced some of the longest and uninterrupted COVID-19 school closures in the world. On average, students in the region lost, fully or partially, two thirds of all in-person school days since the start of the pandemic, with an estimated loss of 1.5 years of learning."
Belize is in the upper range of the top 10 countries of the School Closure Index along with its Central American neighbors, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Panama.
The report also stresses that "younger and more vulnerable children have been disproportionally affected by the learning losses…setting the stage for increased inequality and a generational crisis."
Jean Gough, UNICEF's Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean is quoted as saying that "The education catastrophe is still going on, day after day…we are seeing that far too many children are not back in the classroom full-time, and many of those who have returned are lost."
On a final, even more dismal note, the education crisis in Latin America and the Caribbean places the region in the second worst place globally. Only sub-Saharan Africa shows a higher rate of learning poverty.
You can find the full report on our website. https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/099512306222222251/pdf/IDU00d6b64030a55e0423b0913f0f2ef3f764417.pdf
