Forty million students do not have access to education because of the COVID pandemic, the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund Office of Research (UNICEF) and the World Food Programne (WFP) said in a recent report.
The latest estimates highlight that 24 million schoolchildren are not attending schools throughout the world because of the COVID pandemic.
The report says even before COVID–19, malnutrition has taken a large number of children away from schools. The 2016 Demographic and Health Survey says the acute malnutrition affects one in six children below five. One in 10 schoolchildren between 6-12 suffer from anemia as well, it says
A research by the UNICEF, WFP and the Health Ministry in 2017 revealed that 40 per cent of children between 6-12 were too frail while 22 per cent between 10 -18 were iron deficient and girls in the same group suffered from an iron deficiency rate three times higher than that of the boys of same age.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the UNICEF has supported governments to provide nutritious meals for schoolchildren and adolescents. Last year around 25 million children have benefited from programmes that UNICEF launched to prevent anemia among schoolchildren.
In Sri Lanka, the UNICEF is assisting the Education Ministry to develop guidelines for authorities and teachers to provide psychosocial support to children. They urge governments to open schools while making sure that the health, food and nutritional needs of children are fulfilled through a comprehensive school healthcare and feeding programmes.
