At least 130 million children continue to face class closures five years after COVID-19 shut schools around the world

LONDON/GENEVA, 11 March 2025 - Five years after their schools closed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic – sometimes for nearly two academic years - at least 130 million children across 22 of the countries hardest-hit during the pandemic continue to experience school closures, putting their futures at risk, said Save the Children.  

Save the Children analysed the current learning situation for children living in the 30 countries that experienced the longest pandemic-induced school closures and found that over 130 million children in at least 22 of these countries have had their schools closed again – and sometimes repeatedly – since January 2022. These closures, in countries including the Philippines, Honduras, Bangladesh and Mexico, were all related to climate related impacts, including floods and heatwaves. [1]

Between the World Health Organisation’s declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic in March 2020, and early 2022 when the virus’s spread began winding down, almost every country in the world shut down its schools to try and limit the spread of COVID-19. These pandemic closures had an enduring impact on children’s education with data showing that children in countries that closed schools the longest suffered the largest learning losses, [2] with each day out of school thought to be equivalent to one day of learning lost. [3]

The Philippines saw one of the longest school lockdowns during the pandemic with schools closed for over 520 teaching days between the start of 2020 and March 2022 according to UNESCO. Since then, around 28 million students [4] have had their education impacted by the climate crisis – with many children aged 8 or over having missed out on schooling due to both the pandemic and 15 extreme weather events [5] including a blistering heatwave in 2024 and Storm Trami last October. According to a government study, students lost 32 teaching days due to extreme weather in the 2023-2024 academic year.[6]

Carla, 16, a student in the Philippines and a Save the Children campaigner, said:

"I was in 6th grade when the pandemic started. I never learned how to find x or what is 7% of 60. I am scared I will never know. By the time my classmates were drawing the bell curve, I was having trouble how to subtract integers with different signs. And up until now that I am in senior high school, I find it difficult and overwhelming. When I go back to the basics ... I feel like there is always going to be a lesson that other students know, and I do not. It feels like the gap will always be there. I guess I will never be confident in mathematics.

"The COVID-19 pandemic greatly impacted student's education, leaving them behind and creating a learning gap that will take years to fill. This learning gap wasn't filled by the time face to face classes were back. As the school years went by and they stepped into higher grade levels, the gap became bigger and bigger as the basic knowledge needed to understand complex ideas was not acquired. And as long as it is not addressed and filled, the gap will continue to widen.”

Globally, the World Bank estimates that 404 million children in 81 countries had their education interrupted by the climate crisis between the start of 2022 and June 2024, with affected schools in countries that shut their doors in such cases losing an average of 28 days of teaching. The frequency of extreme weather events and natural disasters that impact education are projected to increase and half the world’s children – over 1 billion – are at extreme risk from climate-related events. [7]  

While distance learning can help, the UN estimates that two thirds of the world’s school-age children have no internet access at home. Many children who lose out repeatedly on learning struggle to catch up, raising the likelihood of dropping out.  

James Cox, Save the Children’s head of education policy and advocacy said:  

“Five years after the first school shut down because of COVID-19, children increasingly face being locked out of the classroom for weeks in some of the countries on earth most vulnerable to the climate crisis.  

"The pandemic hit the learning of children globally with vulnerable children in the poorest countries affected most, [7] and so will these closures. Education is lifesaving and lifegiving. It provides children with knowledge and skills, but also hope, and in many situations, food, and a safe place to be during the day. Schools and education systems need to be supported to become more resilient to the effects of the climate crisis with the funding provided for this.”

During the pandemic, Save the Children provided distance learning materials such as books and home learning kits to support learners during lockdown, working closely with governments and teachers to provide lessons and support through radio, television, phone, social media and messaging apps. Save the Children also set up “Catch up Clubs” to support children to return to learning when schools reopened. These clubs, which support literacy, numeracy and coping skills have now been implemented in sixteen countries globally [8].  We are also constructing climate-resilient and green schools designed to withstand extreme weather, and support 35 of the most climate vulnerable countries around the world to make education systems more climate resilient.

As the world’s leading independent child rights organisation working in over 100 countries, Save the Children tackles climate in everything we do, including education. Save the Children is part of the Green Climate Fund and Global Partnership for Education-funded ‘Building the Climate Resilience of Children and Communities through the Education Sector’ (BRACE), which provides finance to construct climate-resilient and green schools, integrate climate change in school curricula and provide climate early warnings to schools. We are also part of the Climate Smart Education Systems Initiative (CSESI) funded by the Global Partnership for Education which aims to strengthen education’s resilience and relevance to climate change and environmental degradation.

ENDS

[1] Methodology: Save the Children identified the 30 countries that faced the longest pandemic-related school disruptions using data from UNESCO. We then looked at how many of these countries had since faced climate-related shutdowns using data from UNICEF for 2024, and data for 2022 and 2023 for countries shared with us by the World Bank, supplementing when needed with Sitreps, news reports and other sources. For countries with climate-related shutdowns in multiple years, we followed the World Bank’s methodology in taking the largest annual caseload from 2022 – 2024 and adding 10% of the student population in the overlapping country/ region to account for students entering or leaving the system in the previous or following year as appropriate.  

[2] https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/education/covid-19-school-closures-caused-significant-drop-student-learning-outcomes

[3] World Bank, Choosing our Future: Education for Climate Action, https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/9d1c318a-bcd3-49fa-b1c6-cc03e18d4670/content

[4] Save the Children estimate compiling UNICEF data from 2024 showing that 24.2 million students missed out on schooling in 2024, along with estimates of overlapping caseloads from disasters in previous years.  

[5] Data for up to June 2024, shared by the World Bank and updated through February 2025 by Save the Children.  

[6] https://www.pids.gov.ph/details/news/in-the-news/a-month-of-teaching-days-lost-due-to-extreme-heat-other-calamities-study

[7] https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/internal_pdf/education-in-climate-resilience-po-sb2sl.pdf/

[8] https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/unesco-report-inclusion-education-shows-40-poorest-countries-did-not-provide-specific-support

[9] Catch-Up Clubs | Save the Children’s Resource Centre Studies show strong positive effects of these “Catch up Clubs” on literacy learning