COVID-19 left governments, donors and NGOs scrambling to mitigate the largest concurrent disruption to the global education system. They are mobilizing programs to keep children learning out of the classroom. But students aren’t the only ones who need support during the pandemic; parents and teachers also require assistance in how to adapt in order to get buy in for distance learning programs, and to ensure tools like radio or television for broadcast lessons are available to all children.
Of the US$250 million GPE allocated to mitigate the adverse impact on the education sector, US$225 million will be invested in countries, while US$25 million will be invested in global and regional activities to help countries share ideas about approaches that are working.
More funding will be needed depending on how long students are at home, acknowledged GPE CEO Alice Albright. In many countries where education is already underfunded, availability of funding will be strained once the COVID-19 outbreak is over and children are back in school.