Climate change is drastically impacting education of children, latest UNESCO report reveals
Climate stressors like heat, wildfires, floods, and rising sea levels are undermining education and could reverse recent gains, per the Global Education Monitoring Report.
Compiled by UNESCO, the MECCE project, and the University of Saskatchewan, the report indicates that annual climate-related school closures in low and middle-income countries heighten the risk of learning loss and dropout.
How is climate change disrupting education?
The report explains that there are several reasons for which education systems are directly suffering. Some of the major reasons are loss of life among students and staff members, demolition of infrastructure, and adverse impact on health and livelihoods. As per a study reported by the UNSECO, in the last 20 years, about 75% of extreme weather conditions have resulted in the shutting down of schools and almost affecting five million people. Several deaths and the destruction of schools have been reported because of natural calamities like cyclones and floods. The report also mentioned the fact that higher heat exposures at the prenatal and early life stages are related to less time spent in schooling specifically in Southeast Asian countries.
Heat exposure impact on years of schooling
A child who gets exposed to temperatures that are more than then normal is expected to attend 1.5 fewer years of schooling. For instance, in the United States, a reduced test score by 1% was recorded when the temperature was 1 degree Celsius hotter in the school year and without air conditioning. In China, because of the scorching heat test performances of college entrants’ rates and high school graduation were affected whereas in Brazil, students who belonged from the heat-prone areas lost around 1% of learning yearly. African American students are affected by similar weather conditions.
According to the study, rainfall shocks harm vocabulary skills during the first 15 years of life at the age of 5 and non-cognitive skills and math-solving capability at the age of 15. The number of school enrolments also badly affected children from seven Asian countries who have experienced natural disasters early in life. Math performance among students is also affected because of these reasons.
Climate-induced educational disruptions are most common among marginalized populations. Out of the ten countries, 8 most affected by the extreme weather patterns belong to the middle or lower-income countries. Among the list of 33 countries at extremely high climate risk, 29 fall under fragile states.
Around 32.6 million people have been reported to be internally displaced by natural calamities in the year 2022. Climate change has led to displacement which has directly impacted education at large.