The COVID-19 pandemic has grossly interrupted learning and education delivery across the globe, with governments, schools, parents and learners left at a loss on how to proceed with the new normal. The pandemic has revealed the deep fissures in the education sector, both globally and locally. Most struggling public school systems have no capacity to cope or adopt new learning technologies while the private school systems have been exposed to dire and crippling financial vulnerabilities.

The High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) is held every year to align and review the progress on the SDGs. This year’s assembly brought together varied sustainability practitioners and policy makers to exchange ideas on Accelerated action and transformative pathways: realizing the decade of action and delivery for sustainable development. The 2020 event was unprecedented in its scope as it was the first session fully held online with various virtual side events that sought to temperature check the impact of the on-going pandemic on learning and suggest ideas for the education sector to cope and quickly adapt to the new normal.

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The year 2020 is certainly a lost year for most school-going children and learners. The HLPF side event on Learning and Training for SDG Implementation in the COVID-19 era revealed that 90% of school going children have been affected worldwide, with children in developing countries being disproportionately affected by indefinite school closures with limited or no access to alternative online learning. The Brookings report finds that over 250 million primary and secondary children in Africa are out of school, further exacerbating the pre-pandemic learning inequalities in low income households.

While learning has been disrupted at an unprecedented level, the massive loss of livelihoods within the education sector is pushing families and individuals into extreme poverty. As of July 2020, the Kenyan government declared schools closed until 2021, layoffs, salary cuts and unpaid leaves have rendered teachers and school support staff with no or inadequate income as schools grapple with bankruptcy and the brink of closure, the socio-economic impact of the last few months is a big sink hole. Notably affected are private schools that have no public or private financial safety nets that can cushion teachers and staff during the indefinite closure.

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The focus on preventing COVID-19 transmission while critical has led to essential learning being abandoned. Governments, schools, communities and parents seem overwhelmed on how to ensure minimal attrition of learners capabilities, values, attitudes, skills, and knowledge. As we seek to Build Back Better, the education sector must collectively and urgently navigate education during the pandemic, quickly unlearn and re-learn adoption mechanisms especially for children and learners being left behind given the uncertainties of when the pandemic curve will eventually level to zero.

This post marks the first series of Learning in time of COVID-19 pandemic. We are carefully curating and breaking down case studies, policy briefs, strategies and on going global and local dialogues to support the education sector and specifically schools in Africa. For more information and resources, contact Africa Dialogues Consulting on email: dialogues.africa@gmail.com or call +254 731 325 234.

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