Pakistan was forced to institutionalize school closures around the country at the verge of Covid-19’s deadly spread in early 2020.
Classrooms around the world have been locked down to keep the virus from affecting the youngest segment of society. The developing world, Pakistan included, followed suit.
In Pakistan, because of the pandemic and the financial and economic pressures that followed, over 300,000 schools were closed in March last year. This could take up the country’s learning poverty rate to 79 per cent, reports the World Bank.
The pandemic is pushing an estimated 930,000 children out of the 22 million who are already missing school in Pakistan to drop out.
With the income of parents gradually declining due to job loss, more and more kids are now turning up at jobs instead of in schools. It is predicted that nearly a million out-of-school children will never want to see a classroom again.
