Preventable: How a Pandemic Changed the World & How to Stop the Next One

by Devi Sridhar

The US already had severe educational inequalities that the pandemic increased. A June 2020 analysis predicted that the average student would fall seven months behind because of COVID-19, with Hispanic students falling nine months behind and Black students ten months behind. Kayla Patrick of the Education Trust explained, ‘We already knew that Black and brown students weren’t getting the support that they need even before the pandemic. And then the pandemic made all of that worse.’ And there are clear gendered effects too, with school closures putting girls at risk. Globally, before the pandemic hit, the number of girls dropping out of primary school had almost been cut in half. In 2015 women and girls more than fifteen years old spent on average seven years in school, compared with five years in 1990. However, as a result of the school closures, these gains were reversed, with more girls dropping out of school – making them vulnerable to domestic violence, sexual abuse, child marriage and teen pregnancy, and pushing them into the labour force. UNESCO projected that 11 million girls may never return to school after the disruption from COVID-19.