Covid-19 for Students: SDGs

Articles and recommendations from the United Nations on how to deal with the impact of Covid-19, particularly related to vulnerable people

In China, many rural students lack the connections or hardware to learn remotely. More nations will confront the same reality as the outbreak spreads.

More than 290 million students have been disrupted worldwide by COVID-19.

According to UNESCO monitoring, over 160 countries have implemented nationwide closures, impacting over 87% of world’s student population. Several other countries have implemented localized school closures and, should these closures become nationwide, millions of additional learners will experience education disruption.

Close to 80% of the world’s student population – 1.3 billion children and youth – is affected by school closures in 138 countries. Taken as a measure to contain the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, some of these closures are recent, in others they have already been in place for months. In all cases, closures are placing unprecedented challenges on governments to ensure learning continuity, and on teachers, students, caregivers and parents.

Covid-19 is a test not only of our health-care systems and mechanisms for responding to infectious diseases, but also of our ability to work together as a community of nations in the face of a common challenge.

The world’s response to the Covid-19 crisis must encompass everyone, including those forced to flee their homes.

In response to the global COVID-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic, governments worldwide are adopting a host of measures to track and monitor infections and counter disinformation. To contain the outbreak, some governments are deploying sweeping surveillance networks, personal mobile phone tracking, and Artificial Intelligence and facial recognition technologies.

European governments are fighting against the spread of the pandemic with strong measures. This is necessary to respond to the unprecedented challenge we are facing. At the same time, it is clear that the enjoyment of human rights is affected by the pandemic and the measures adopted to encounter it. The right to health, the broader range of economic and social rights, and civil and political freedoms, are all very relevant in the present context.

The outbreak necessitates heavy government involvement in our lives but this does not mean an overreach is justified.