Geneva, The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday warned that the COVID-19 pandemic is severely impacting education worldwide which could undermine decades of progress. In a video message, he said the pandemic could lead enormous wastage of talent. “Now we are facing a generational catastrophe that could waste untold human potensial, undermine decades of progress and exasperate entrenched in equalities.” Guterres pointed out that the education scenario was already precarious even prior to the pandemic. “Already we were facing a learning crisis before the pandemic more than 250 million school age children were out of school and only a quarter of secondary school children in developing countries were leaving school with basic skills,” he said, He reminded that the secondary effects of the pandemic on child nutrition, child marriage and gender equality, among others, are deeply concerning. He cautioned that the world today finds itself at the cross roads.
“We are at a defining moment for the world’s children and young people , the decisions that governments and parties take now will have lasting impact on hundreads of millions of young people, and on the development prospects of countries for decades to come.This is the backdrop of the policy brief I am launching today, together with a new campaign with education partners and United Nations agencies called ‘save our future,” Mr Guterres