New Delhi, Sep 22: On the sideline of the UN General Assembly on Friday, Pakistani education activist and Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai speaking on the impact of the Corona pandemic said, “On education alone, 20 million more girls may never go back to the classroom when this crisis ends, and the global education funding gap has already increased to $200 billion per year.”
Malala Yousafzai, who was shot in the head by the Taliban for going to school in the Swat valley and later faced many brutality of the Taliban, questioned the world body for failure to achieve the goals it set for itself five years ago including
sustainable global goals and representing the future for millions of girls who wanted education and want to fight for equality.
Yousafzai asked, “Noting that little had been done in the last five years to achieve those goals, hen are you planning to do the work? When will you commit the necessary funding to give every child 12 years of quality education? When will you prioritise peace and protect refugees? When will you pass policies to cut carbon emissions?”
According to the last month’s report of the United Nations, the global coronavirus pandemic has created the largest disruption of education systems in history, affecting nearly 1.6 billion students in more than 190 countries and all continents.
Closures of schools and other learning spaces have impacted 94 percent of the world’s student population, up to 99 percent in low and lower-middle income countries, it added.
_Vinayak Barot