CAPE TOWN: At least 242 million babies in 85 countries had their teaching interrupted last year because of wildfires, hurricanes, flood and other severe weather, the United Nations Children’s Fund said in a new record Friday.
According to UNICEF, one in seven school-going kids around the world will be prevented from attending school at some point in 2024 due to climate risks.
The report also described how some countries saw thousands of their institutions destroyed by the elements, with low-income countries in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa particularly affected.
But another parts weren’t spared the severe weather, as heavy rains and floods in Italy near the end of the year disrupted college for more than 900, 000 kids. After severe flooding in Spain, thousands of students had their lessons stopped.
While flood and cyclones affected southern Europe and Asia and Africa, heatwaves were” the dominant climate hazard shuttering schools next year,” according to UNICEF, as the earth experienced its hottest year actually, with the earth experiencing its hottest year ever.
More than 118 million children were left without education in April alone, according to UNICEF, as a large region of the Middle East and Asia, from Gaza in the west to the Philippines in the south, experienced a glistening weekslong heat with temperatures soaring above 40 degrees Celsius ( 104 Fahrenheit )
” Kids are more susceptible to the effect of weather-related problems, including stronger and more frequent wildfires, hurricanes, floods and flooding”, UNICEF executive producer Catherine Russell said in a statement. ” Children’s systems are truly vulnerable. They steam up faster, they sweat less quickly, and great down more slowly than adults. Children find it difficult to concentrate in schools that offer no relief from the blazing temperature, and they find it impossible to attend school if the route is flooded or the schools are swept away.
Around 74 % of the children affected in 2024 were in middle- and low-income countries, showing how climatic extremes continue to have a devastating impact in the poorest countries. In Pakistan, flooding ruined more than 400 universities in April. In May, extreme flooding in Afghanistan caused over 110 institutions to be destroyed, according to UNICEF.
The El Nino conditions phenomenon, which has affected millions of children’s education and prospects, has threatened southern Africa for months.
And there was no sign of abating. Mayotte, a poor European province in the Indian Ocean off Africa, was destroyed by Cyclone Chido in December and hit afterwards by Tropical Storm Dikeledi this quarter, causing kids across the islands to miss school for six months.
In Mozambique, on the African continent, where access to education is now a major issue, more than 330 colleges and three provincial education departments were destroyed by Cyclone Chido.
UNICEF said the nation’s colleges and training systems “are generally ill-equipped” to deal with the effects of intense conditions.
