Loss of school days
Jammu and Kashmir like other regions of the world is experiencing changing weather patterns which is forcing authorities to announce closure of schools untimely and much ahead of the already announced schedule.
This premature closure of schools and other institutes of learning is not only wasting precious time of the students community but is proving dangerous for the learning outcomes of the students.
Just days back a new global report has been tabled which also points out to the decrease in educational gains of the student’s community due to extreme weather conditions.
The report says that children exposed early to extreme heat may lose up to 1.5 years of schooling with climate change having a direct impact on education and threatening to undo educational gains of recent decades.
The report mentions that climate related stressors such as heat, wildfires, storms, floods, droughts, diseases and rising sea levels, affect education outcomes. Most low and middle-income countries are experiencing climate-related school closures every year, increasing chances of learning loss and dropout.
The report compiled by UNESCO’s Global Education Monitoring (GEM) team, Monitoring and Evaluating Climate Communication and Education (MECCE) project and University of Saskatchewan in Canada has pointed out over that the past 20 years, schools were closed in at least 75 per cent of the extreme weather events, impacting millions of students or even more.
Exposure to heat has significant detrimental effects on children’s educational outcomes. An analysis linking census and climate data in 29 countries between 1969 and 2012 showed that exposure to higher than average temperatures during the prenatal and early life period is associated with fewer years of schooling, especially in Southeast Asia.
The global report flagged that climate-induced education vulnerability is worse for marginalised populations. Of the 10 countries most affected by extreme weather events in 2019, eight were low- or lower-middle-income countries.
Of the 33 countries identified as bearing extremely high climate risks for children, where nearly 1 billion people live, 29 are also considered to be fragile states. In the United States, those with low income or without a secondary school certificate are 15 per cent more likely to live in areas with the highest projected increases in childhood asthma diagnoses due to climate-driven increases in particulate air pollution.
The report noted that about half of public school districts need to update or replace multiple heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems so that the weather impacts can be minimised.
Jammu and Kashmir too needs to adjust to the phenomenon of changing weather patterns and every now and then the changed weather conditions should not dictate the forced closure of educational institutions.
The authorities need to plan and provide adequate funds so that schools are equipped with gadgets that can prove useful to beat the weather vagaries and help students to avoid loss of school days.
