Education, interrupted: Mitigating the COVID-19 learning crisis

Season 3, episode 6

Education, interrupted: Mitigating the COVID-19 learning crisis

The pandemic has interrupted the education of children everywhere. In this episode, we’ll explore the consequences of lost learning and examine why certain groups, such as refugee girls, are at risk of losing more than just an education. Identify the problems and find solutions for what can be done to ensure children everywhere get a chance at receiving quality education.

Producers: Victoria Ptashnick, Priyadarshini Mitra

Composed and Mixed by: Chandra Bulucon

Additional music by: Chad Crouch, "Starlight"

Episode Transcript: 

[00:00:00.49] [MUSIC PLAYING]

[00:00:10.82] Dear Teacher Ferguson, it has been so long since I attended your lessons.

[00:00:16.01] It has been a long time without seeing you, and I have missed you.

[00:00:19.88] You make learning really fun, and it makes learning easy for me, especially English.

[00:00:26.48] Especially physics. Now I understand the world a little better.

[00:00:30.74] During your class, we always have good debates. It is important to have an opinion, especially for us, girls.

[00:00:38.00] When I have a question, I raise up my hand and can ask it. And you explain it very clearly. I am really looking forward to a return to your classroom. I hope to see you very soon.

[00:00:52.64] By your pupil, Sara [INAUDIBLE].

[00:00:54.47] And by the name, Margaret Joseph.

[00:00:57.23] Yours sincerely, Martha [INAUDIBLE].

[00:00:59.27] By your pupil, [INAUDIBLE] Joseph.

[00:01:06.41] Those heartfelt letters you just heard were written from students in South Sudan to their teachers to tell them how much they miss school. And they aren't alone. COVID-19 has interrupted the education of children everywhere.

[00:01:21.44] In this episode, we'll explore the consequences of halted learning and why certain groups of children are at risk of losing more than just an education. I'm David Morley, the president and CEO of UNICEF Canada and the host of the For Every Child podcast.

[00:01:41.43] [MUSIC PLAYING]

[00:01:50.76] We are facing a COVID-19 education crisis. The pandemic has interrupted the education of children everywhere with consequences that we can't fully understand yet. Schools for more than 168 million children around the world have been closed for almost a full year. With every day that goes by, these children will fall further behind, and the most vulnerable will pay the heaviest price.

[00:02:20.46] School closures are expected to exacerbate the learning crisis that existed before the pandemic with the most vulnerable children being the most adversely affected. The consequences are grave. An estimated 617 million children and adolescents around the world are unable to reach minimum proficiency levels in reading and mathematics even though 2/3 of them are in school.

[00:02:49.11] Children are excluded from education for many reasons. Poverty remains one of the most challenging barriers with children from the poorest households almost five times more likely to be out of primary school than those from the richest families. Children with disabilities and from ethnic minorities are also more likely to be left behind.

[00:03:11.34] For girls in some parts of the world, education opportunities can be especially limited. Only 66% of countries have achieved gender parity in primary education. To tell us more about that, we have with us Yasmine Sherif, director of Education Cannot Wait, to talk to us about how the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated this issue and what we can do to help. Welcome to our podcast, Yasmine.

[00:03:42.87] Thank you very much, David.

[00:03:44.94] This pandemic has resulted in an enormous socioeconomic impact on education. And for millions of refugee and internally-displaced girls, these losses will be felt with even more intensity. Could you take us through some of the ways in which this impact has been seen?

[00:04:03.33] Well, it depends where you look. And I think education cannot wait. We have not only looked at it from afar but actually traveled there. We've been to Burkina Faso. We've been to Cameroon and traveled around in the region-- going to Nigeria-- during COVID-19-- to Lebanon-- during the actual pandemic. And what we see varies.

[00:04:29.01] Let's take refugees and refugee girls from Syria. We met with female teachers who were working very hard on smartphones to provide homework, classes, and exams to families of refugees. And one family with four girls or daughters, and they only had one smartphone available in the family. So you can just imagine the pressure it has put on them.

[00:05:03.16] So you have four girls that you want to educate, and the parents are keen to educate. You have excellent teachers from Lebanon who is doing all innovation and have all commitment to actually reach out to them, but the family itself has only one smartphone.

[00:05:23.25] And because of the financial situation in Lebanon, the average income of the Lebanese today is $200, and I'm not speaking refugees here. And access to Wi-Fi is $120 per month. So you can just imagine the financial resources lacking to provide every refugee girl or every refugee with a smartphone and with access to Wi-Fi.

[00:05:51.12] Then you go to sub-Saharan Africa where you don't even have smartphones. You don't even have electricity. You don't have Wi-Fi at all. And you see young children and adolescents where they are compelled to go in to some very rudimentary facilities to continue the learning but without any access.

[00:06:21.61] Then you have a situation in Afghanistan where teachers have to walk from door to door because there is no access to infrastructure or Wi-Fi.

[00:06:32.03] You were recently in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and met refugee and displaced girls, many of whom have fled violence and conflict. Can you tell us about your interaction and experience and maybe share the story of one of those children you met?

[00:06:48.44] Well, I spoke with many children, but we did learn from them and their parents that they had fled through the woods, the forests for weeks in terror, sheer terror, hiding until they finally crossed the border into the DRC. So they also arrive very traumatized. They are undernourished. School feeding is so important.

[00:07:12.51] But what is interesting when you speak with internally-displaced refugees and the crisis-affected children, the overwhelming majority, they always want to go to school and get an education to help others.

[00:07:29.60] I find that so fascinating when I speak to children in Colombia who fled from Venezuela or children in Cameroon, DRC, in Lebanon, in the UNRRA camps, they want to policemen to protect the world and people. They want to be lawyers to speak up for justice. They want to be teachers to help others to learn. They want to be nurses and doctors.

[00:07:56.37] There's very, very little selfishness in them. It's all about wanting to help others, and I think that goes back to this enormous trauma that they've experienced themselves. They know suffering deep in their hearts.

[00:08:10.43] When you say that, Yasmine, it makes me think back to children whom I've known and worked with in Central America. And as you say, children who'd been living on the streets who'd had to flee from their own-- from terrible situations. And yeah, what they wanted to do was to be able to help others. There's something very strong in the human spirit that makes that come through. It's really special.

[00:08:39.71] How can we make this an opportunity to transform education systems and reimagine the way that those girls, in particular, the girls in crisis situations can learn and can fulfill their right to an education? Can we use this pandemic in a transformational way?

[00:08:59.51] Absolutely, but I think we need to look at it from different levels or dimensions. Globally speaking, the pandemic has made almost every human being on Earth to experience some sense of isolation, suffering, and a disruption of their life. Those in the welfare parts of the world have actually suffered. I think someone said, or I think others have said that this is the World War of our generation in the sense that we have all been affected.

[00:09:35.53] I hope that the pandemic will be turned into an opportunity for transcending selfishness-- in the welfare part of the world-- and greed and actually start looking at how can I contribute? How can I help? That it would have softened our hearts and our concern for the world at large, but that's because precisely what happened after the Second World War.

[00:10:02.08] And that's how the United Nations was created because everyone that came and created the UN back then had been to labor camps, concentration camps, on the front line, and that's why the UN Charter is so beautiful because it was so authentic.

[00:10:18.92] So I hope that it will awaken all of us, especially the North that has the funding, the resources, and say, now we're going to truly invest in those left furthest behind and show solidarity because we have got the taste of suffering ourselves. Another dimension is that we may understand the importance of technology because remote learning has replaced in-person classroom teaching. And especially if you're a refugee on flight, how can you learn while you're on the move?

[00:10:55.03] But I want to stress, and I absolutely believe that if you are going to move towards a more technologized world where every child, every youth needs access to technology and internet and be able to use the learning materials and software and hardware that come for that purpose, but it also will require building the infrastructure.

[00:11:20.41] And that means we have to create a more fair and equitable-- socioeconomically equitable world. It's not OK that children in Cameroon, Chad, Central African Republic cannot sit at home and work on an iPad or a computer whereas children from Sweden, children from the Netherlands, from France, from Italy, from the US, Canada, and so forth, they can, and they cannot somewhere.

[00:11:54.10] We have to realize that there's a huge socioeconomic inequity in this world. And hopefully, the pandemic will have made us not only more compassionate-- because it's more than just compassion-- but more responsible towards others. We are in this together, and we are one humanity.

[00:12:14.80] Thanks very much.

[00:12:16.74] Thank you.

[00:12:20.88] Part of being one humanity means equal access to education. Every child has the right to education. Yet huge numbers of refugee and displaced children are out of school. When children and youth, especially girls, can assess quality education, they become more powerful agents of change for themselves and their communities.

[00:12:44.87] The government of Canada has created the Global Refugee Education Council bringing together 15 young experts who are living as refugees, forcibly-displaced persons, or in communities that host them. These leaders, with their diverse range of experiences and knowledge, will work to strengthen the government of Canada's commitments to addressing the growing global displacement crisis and its impact on education. And today, we have one of those council members with us.

[00:13:16.12] Istarlin has been living in the Kakuma Refugee camp in Kenya for most of her life after her family fled the civil war in Somalia when she was just a baby. Since arriving in the refugee camp she calls home, she has become an education and human rights advocate who is passionate about girls' education.

[00:13:36.58] Welcome to our podcast, Istarlin. Let's start with your story. Could you tell us about your personal experience with displacement, and how that had an impact on your access to education?

[00:13:48.58] My name is Istarlin Abdi Halane, and I'm a mother of two beautiful girls. I'm a photographer, a storyteller, and a human right advocate. I've been living in Kakuma Refugee Camp for the past 20 plus years.

[00:14:04.42] 20 years is a long time.

[00:14:06.98] Sorry, actually, I don't even know why I've been living in a refugee camp for more than 20 years actually. All I know is since the beginning, it's-- I call it home because it's where I have known home, where I can identify as home because it's the only place I have known. I came to Kenya when I was just a little girl, a baby. So actually, refugee camp is my home. It's where I can say, you know what, I belong in Kakuma because that's where-- I'm like, oh my god, I'm from Kakuma, this is my home.

[00:14:36.22] So sometimes people think, like, a refugee stays in a refugee camp for, like, two years, three years, five years. There are people who have been here more than 25 years, 26 years. Yes, and if someone have lived in a place for more than 20 years, is that a definition of home, or it's just a place, a temporary place as they call it?

[00:14:56.77] Because first when you are being put in a refugee camp, people talk about temporary, you know? But how can you talk about temporary when people have been living there more than 20 years? Leaving is not an option for me because I don't have any documents to take me to any places. The only document I have, and I'm recognized as a refugee under UNHCR.

[00:15:18.40] It's like, I'm under UNHCR. It's like, I'm in a shelter, a forever shelter. Actually for us youth, we joke about it, and we call it-- it's an open prison, it's a cage. So if you ask someone who has been in Kakuma Refugee Camp more than 20 years, why are you still here? So sometimes if you feel it's really a hard question to answer because personally, I ask myself, Istarlin, why are you still here? Because I have no other place to go. If I have documents that I can go to another country or that can allow me to go to another place, I would. But I can't because it's illegal. I need to be here now.

[00:15:53.86] How has living in a refugee camp for most of your life impacted you?

[00:15:58.27] I've always had this identity crisis because I am a Somali, I've been living in a country that I-- we don't have the same culture, we don't speak the same language. People are different, and it used to be like a dilemma for me growing up. But with time, I feel like I started understanding my own identity. I knew I'm a Somali. I knew I'm just a displaced person, and it's just a status that will change someday.

[00:16:26.29] But nowadays, what I'm so scared about is raising two girls in a refugee camp where I grew up. I feel like I have this fear of them having the same crisis I did, fighting this identity crisis, questioning where they belong. Oh my god, raising children and specifically girls in a refugee camp where you happen to be a woman, a single mother.

[00:16:50.82] Oh my god, I feel like it's one of the toughest things I've ever done in my life because constantly, you need to be on toes. You need to be someone who is very strong to protect them, to lead them, to do everything in a hard way because it's-- you're fighting these cultural norms. You're fighting everything. Everyone is undermining you because you are a woman, but you have to be strong.

[00:17:12.07] You have to fight for them. You have to let them know everybody, like, these are my girls, they need to have education-- quality education. They need to do whatever they feel like doing. They have their rights. Like, it's a constant fight that you're fighting. Actually one of them is here. She's back from school. Hi, baby girl.

[00:17:30.93] [MUSIC PLAYING]

[00:17:39.61] So you mentioned education and how dedicated you are to ensuring your girls stay in school. What was your experience like as a refugee going to school?

[00:17:50.20] Back in the days when I was in school, we didn't have classrooms. We didn't have enough teachers. We didn't have blackboards. All we did was sit under trees and sit on stones. Everybody had to make their own stone to sit on. That was our desk. And we would write on sand, and we use-- we would share one book and one teacher.

[00:18:09.41] So with time, I feel like education have changed but not enough. Still, it's not enough. It's not quality education because the population is huge. You will go to a class, and you will find a 120 students in one class. How can a teacher teach 120 students? 200, 150 students? That is unimaginable. So I feel like way back when I was growing up, education was really low. But with time, it has progressed, but it's not enough. It's not yet there where it should be.

[00:18:41.71] How has your experience taught you that there needs to be a focus on education of refugee children?

[00:18:49.15] I'm so passionate about education because for me, I grew-- I was this girl who was into education so much, but I had an early marriage because I was married off. I didn't get to finish my high school back then. So I feel like it's something that I've always treasured. It was something.

[00:19:10.65] It was my passion because I knew-- I always believed that-- and I've always believed that education is a great equalizer, and I still feel that because if a person is educated even if he is a refugee, they don't have a state, they will have the same-- they will be on the same level with another person. I feel like education can put people in an equalized area.

[00:19:34.65] So I'm so passionate about it because I've been working with a lot of NGOs in the camp, and particularly for girls, I'm passionate about it because I never got the chance to be fought for by somebody like me. To say, like, you know what, girls should always be in school. Girls should always do this. Girls should always have a higher education and all that.

[00:19:54.25] So I feel like it's something that I've always wanted to do as a young-- as a young girl. And growing up, I-- there was all these complications in between. And now I'm doing it because I have two girls that I need to do that for them. So I'm so passionate about education.

[00:20:09.81] You touched on the fact that girls in particular face challenges in getting an education. What barriers have you seen that girls face?

[00:20:18.53] Oh, in the camp, the most barriers that girl face is they have these early marriages, early pregnancies. Sometimes they feel like they don't have enough role models in the camp. You feel-- they feel like even if they are girls, they don't need education to survive. They will one day get married off. That's their perception.

[00:20:39.06] They will one day get married, and a man will provide for them. A man will take care of them. So that is the main concern in the camp. You see a 15-year-old, 16-year-old getting married sometimes against her will, sometimes it's her own choice because she feels like it's the only choice you have.

[00:20:55.44] What inspired you to be a part of it of the Global Refugee Education Council?

[00:21:01.74] What inspired me the most is where I grew up, the education that I had when I was growing up. I will never wish for any child to sit under a tree where there is no blackboards, there's no chalks, there's no books, there's no pens. And I still have that passion of learning. I want to see even if it's a refugee camp, it's a host community, it doesn't matter. I just want to see every child because it's their right to have a quality education.

[00:21:29.64] And my daughters is always the biggest reason as well. So that if I can do this for them, I can do for any other girl in the camp because I represent all of them. It's not only my daughters. I represent any Congolese, Rwandese, Ethiopian, Somali, South Sudanese in the camp. I represent them because I was once a girl just like them and had the same dreams actually they are having now. Yeah.

[00:21:53.63] What are some of your recommendations on what Canada can do for education of refugee children around the world?

[00:22:00.05] I think the most important thing is it's very important to listen and learn from the voices of refugees and forcibly-displaced youth and children and community leaders, parents, teachers. When you include people-- if you want to help somebody, you need to bring that person on board and let them be part of the solution.

[00:22:23.42] If you want to help me, and you say, oh, Istarlin, you should be on the sideline, I'll talk for you, I'll do everything for you. I will feel like it's not inclusive. I'm not included. So we need that inclusion. Like, refugees should be part of the solution. They should be part of the conversation, you know?

[00:22:43.10] Thank you, Istarlin.

[00:22:44.69] Thank you so much for having me. Thank you.

[00:22:49.61] As you've heard from Yasmine and Istarlin, schools are essential for children's learning, health, safety, and well-being. Quality education ensures each child can reach their full potential, an opportunity every child deserves regardless of gender, ability, ethnicity, or location.

[00:23:11.37] If you're in agreement with this, please go to unicef.ca to learn how you can play a role in providing education that prepares children with skills they need to thrive. With that, we come to the end of our episode for the month. Thank you for listening.

[00:23:29.57] [MUSIC PLAYING]