400 million students affected globally by climate related school closures since 2022 – World Bank Report

Sep 08, 2024 News

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Kaieteur News – Climate related school closures have affected 400 million students globally between 2022 and 2024, a new World Bank report has said.

The report published on Wednesday ‘Choosing Our Future: Education for Climate Action’ described the ongoing disruptions to learning as a crisis which remain invisible since they are not being tracked.

It said there was no official data on the frequency and severity of school closures due to extreme climate events. Consequently, this crisis is going largely unnoticed. For this report, the World Bank relied on extensive literature reviews, supplemented with novel data. It said it not only assessed media reports on climate-related school closures between January 2022 to June 2024 from 81 countries, but also a number of other surveys such as a youth survey (ages 17-35 years) on climate and education from eight countries (Angola, Bangladesh, China, Columbia, India, Kazakhstan, Senegal, and Tanzania).

The World Bank’s analysis shows that over the past 20 years, schools were closed in at least 75% of the climate-related extreme weather events impacting 5 million people or more.

“Most worryingly, the frequency and severity of school closures continues to grow due to climate change. Between January 2022 and June 2024, an estimated 404 million students faced school closures due to extreme weather events. This was the result of at least 81 countries shutting down schools temporarily due to floods, storms, and heatwaves,” the Institution said.

Notably, these school closures can cause big learning losses. Between January 2022 and June 2024, countries that closed schools to respond to climate shocks lost on average 28 days of instruction in affected schools, the report stated.

“Affected schools in low-income countries during the same period lost about 45 days, while those in high-income countries lost only 6 days. In some contexts, climate-related school closures are frequent or of long duration,” the World Bank said.

For instance, between January 2022 and June 2024, students in Philippines experienced 23 episodes of school closures. In Pakistan, they lost 97 days of school (nearly 54 percent of a typical academic year).

Rising temperatures are also having a negative impact on student learning, the Institution reported. In fact an average student in the poorest 50% of Brazilian municipalities could lose up to 0.5 years of learning overall due to rising temperatures.

Do more

According to the World Bank, schools can do much more for pro-climate behaviour change. Across low- and middle-income countries most students, parents, teachers, and even policymakers want schools to better prepare students for climate action, however, this is currently not happening. The biggest obstacles to this goal are low foundational skills; lack of climate education within already overloaded curricula and lack of teacher capacity.

The World Bank said across 100 countries, nearly 47% of frameworks have no mention of climate change.  In a youth survey across eight low- and middle-income countries, nearly 65% feel they did not learn enough about climate in school. But adding climate topics to an already overloaded school curricula is not easy. If done without careful consideration, it could backfire by further crowding-out the much-needed focus on foundational skills, the institution pointed out.

Additionally, the World Bank noted that most teachers currently do not have the capacity to teach on climate. Across six low- and middle-income countries, 87% of teachers claim to include climate themes in their lessons, and yet 71% answered at least one basic climate related question incorrectly.

Rising temperatures in Guyana

The World Bank Report on the impacts of climate on education comes at a time when Guyana, like other countries, has been experiencing higher temperatures.

Recently the Hydrometeorological Service of the Ministry of Agriculture issued a public advisory due to the predicted above-normal temperatures across Guyana from September to November 2024.

This period, traditionally the warmest months of the year, particularly in September and October, is expected to experience even higher-than-average temperatures, raising concerns for public health, agriculture, and livestock.

The Hydrometeorological Service warns that the increased likelihood of extreme heat and heat wave days could significantly impact vulnerable groups, including the elderly, children, and those with pre-existing health conditions.

“During this time, heat-related illnesses such as dehydration, heat exhaustion, and heat stroke become significant risks… with the potential for an above average number of heat wave days this year, the Hydrometeorological Service urges the public to take preventive measures,” the Hydromet office cautioned.

The public was urged to take preventive measures, such as staying hydrated, limiting outdoor activities during peak heat hours, and ensuring that living and working spaces are well-ventilated.

The discussions on climate change- the long-term shift in temperatures and weather conditions- has taken on global importance as rising temperatures continue to take a detrimental toll on the environment and human life.

It is however, human activities, that have been the main driver of climate change, primarily the burning of fossil fuels (like coal, oil and gas), which produces heat-trapping gases.

The United Nations explains that burning fossil fuels generates greenhouse gas emissions that act like a blanket wrapped around the Earth, trapping the sun’s heat and raising temperatures.

The main greenhouse gases that are causing climate change include carbon dioxide and methane. These come from using gasoline for driving a car or coal for heating a building, for example.

Following the discovery of oil off this country’s coast in 2015, ExxonMobil began producing oil in December 2019.  With three Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessels in operation, producing an average 645,000 barrel per day, Guyana maintains that emissions from the sector are offset from its huge forest cover that acts as a carbon sink- meaning that the country removes more carbon than it emits into the environment. Forest accounts for about 85% of Guyana’s total land area.

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• climate, education, heatwaves, Report, School, weather

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