UNESCO urges action to meet rampant $200 billion annual funding gap for education in poorest countries due to COVID-19

By PRESS RELEASEPARIS, Sep 4 2020 (IPS-Partners) New research by the Global Education Monitoring Report at UNESCO shows an increase in the annual funding gap for education in the poorest countries to as much as US$200 billion a year. These findings are published in the new paper, Act Now: Reduce the impact of COVID-19 on the Cost of Achieving SDG4. The paper calls for the immediate introduction of emergency remedial programmes, which could reduce the potential cost of COVID-19 on education by 75%. This could also reduce the social cost of failing to meet the Sustainable Development Goal on Education (SDG4) which calls for the provision of inclusive quality education for all by 2030. It is therefore imperative for leaders to prioritize investment in education for low and middle-income countries and avoid the higher cost of catching up on lost education later. Before the pandemic, UNESCO estimated the annual spending requirement to meet SDG4 at US$504 billion, of which US$148 billion were unavailable. Under plausible school closures and present GDP growth scenarios, COVID-19 looks set to increase this funding gap by up to a third. COVID-19 is pushing countries’ educational costs up due to the need to re-enrol students and to offer remedial programmes to support the return to school of the most marginalized learners, help them catch up and maximize their chances of staying in school. Additional costs are needed to ensure children are safe in the classroom, with access to hyg...
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Education Health Humanitarian Emergencies Source Type: news