School closures bringing problems

School closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic are still affecting more than 600 million children in countries where they are not on an academic break, said the United Nations Children's Fund, or UNICEF.

The closures mean "education, safety, friends and food have been replaced by anxiety, violence, and teenage pregnancy", the agency said.

"Across the globe in all continents we've seen child helplines, a good precursor to understanding kids who are reporting violence, seeing often triple-digit increases," UNICEF spokesman James Elder said in Geneva on Tuesday.

In nearly half of countries in Asia and the Pacific, schools have been closed for around 200 days, while countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have been affected by the longest closures, according to UNICEF.

It estimates that 40 percent of all children in Eastern and Southern Africa, aged 5 to 18, are currently out of school. In Uganda, the pandemic had led to a 20 percent rise in teen pregnancies in the last 15 months.

Elder warned that if the figures from UNICEF "did not resonate with those in power, then consider a World Bank report that estimates a loss of $10 trillion in earnings over time" for this generation of students.

Remote learning

UNICEF said remote learning was not accessible to many, saying the solution is "simply out of reach "for at least a third of the world's schoolchildren.

Elder noted that in East Asia and the Pacific, "80 million children have no access whatsoever to any remote learning".

He added that in Uganda, schoolchildren have gone more than 300 days out of school, while home internet connectivity "is the lowest on the planet there at about 0.3 percent".

UNICEF has called for immediate action, laying out a five-step plan. It is appealing for schools to reopen as soon as possible; for governments and donors to protect the education budget; and for enrolment to be extended to children who were already out of school pre-COVID-19.

It also seeks the removal of financial barriers and the loosening of registration requirements, and for cash transfers to the most vulnerable to be increased.

"Everything needs to be done to bring an end to the pandemic," Elder said.

He added: "Immediately sharing available excess doses is a minimum, essential and emergency stop-gap measure, and it is needed right now. As is financing to support the rollout of vaccines.

"In addition to vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics are critical to bringing this pandemic under control, which is why, as part of its annual Humanitarian Appeal for Children, UNICEF has called for $659 million to help countries with the delivery of vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostic tools in 2021."