The United Nations Agency for International DevelopmentnfancyUnicef warned on Wednesday that almost 147 million children around the world have lost more than half of their schooling in the last two years due to the covid-19 pandemic, and two years later, schools in 23 countries have still not fully reopened.

The introductory note to the UN agency's report "Are children really learning?" (argues that the pandemic's impact on education has aggravated a "global education crisis that was already threatening the future of millions of children around the world.

Unicef said that as of data, between 2018 and 2020 the number of out-of-school students has increased by 5.9 million. But with the aggravation of the pandemic, the situation has gone from bad to worse: in South Africa the number has tripled from 250,000 students out of school to 750,000 students between March 2020 and July 2021; in Malawi, the dropout rate among girls in secondary school has increased by 48%, from 6.5% to 9.5%, between 2020 and 2021.

In Liberia (43%), Uganda (10%) and Kenya (16%) there is evidence that children have not returned to school.

On document says that about 23 countries have not yet resumed the normal course of classes, i.e., schools have not fully opened, exacerbating the risk of more dropouts.

In most of the sub-Saharan African countries analyzed, less than one in ten children had the fundamental skills expected for their age.

According to the statement, "In Mozambique, school closures affected about 80% of the 2020 school year for students in classes without exams, as well as for youth and adults. In the 2021 school year, schools in high-risk areas were closed from July 19 to August 27, or 30 school days. This represents 18.7% of the school year, affecting 18% of total primary and secondary school students. Great efforts have been made to enable the schools to reopen and continue despite the last vacancies of COVID-19. However, children need extra support to catch up on academic content, especially since some students can only attend classes a few days a week, or children in emergency-affected areas have had learning interrupted because of the cyclones or crisis in the north of the country."