Paris (AFP)
The Covid-19 pandemic, generating unprecedented disruption in education, source of social and digital divides, could further weaken the traditional neglected education: poor, young girls, disabled, says UNESCO Tuesday on the occasion of the publication of a world report on education.
"Past experiences - as with Ebola - have shown that health crises can leave a large number of people by the wayside, especially the poorest girls, many of whom may never return to school", affirms the director of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Audrey Azoulay, in the foreword to the report, entitled "Inclusion and education - All, without exception".
Because everywhere, except in "the high-income countries of Europe and North America, for 100 of the richest young people who complete upper secondary education, they are only 18 among the poorest young people to achieve this. " "In at least 20 countries, most of them located in sub-Saharan Africa, practically no poor young woman in rural areas completes their secondary studies," notes this Unesco World Education Monitoring Report 2020.
In 2018, sub-Saharan Africa was home to the largest cohort of out-of-school youth, exceeding for the first time Central and South Asia: 19% of schoolchildren, 37% at college level, 58% of potential high school students.
Globally, nearly 260 million young people had no access to education, or 17% of those of school age. And among the first excluded are disadvantaged children, girls and young girls, children with disabilities, those from ethnic or linguistic minorities, migrants ...
Thus, "10-year-old students from middle and high income countries who have been taught in a language other than their mother tongue generally score 34% lower than those of native speakers in reading tests".
- Internet at home -
Or: "In ten low and middle income countries, children with disabilities are 19% less likely to reach a minimum level of reading than those who are not disabled." But everywhere, disability can be an obstacle to inclusion, in particular due to "discriminatory beliefs of parents": "around 15% of parents in Germany and 59% in Hong Kong fear that children with disabilities will interfere with learning other".
And in the United States, "LGBTI students were almost three times more likely to say they might have preferred to stay home because they didn't feel safe at school."
The current health crisis has highlighted these fractures more than ever: "The responses to the Covid-19 crisis, which affected 1.6 billion learners, have not paid sufficient attention to the inclusion of all learners, "say the authors of the report.
"While 55% of low-income countries have opted for online distance learning in primary and secondary education, only 12% of households in least developed countries have access to the Internet at home. Even the approaches that require only limited technological resources cannot guarantee the continuity of learning. Among the poorest 20% of households, only 7% have a radio in Ethiopia and none have a television, "they quote. for exemple.
"Overall, around 40% of low-income and lower middle-income countries have failed to support learners at risk of exclusion," they point out, not forgetting to point out the shortcomings of wealthy countries: "en France, up to 8% of students have lost contact with teachers after three weeks of confinement. "
On these various findings, the report draws up a series of recommendations for inclusive education, starting with proactive policies, because "many governments" have not yet implemented the principle of inclusion. Unesco also considers that targeted funding is necessary.
© 2020 AFP