Topic B Discussions!

Students from schools in Floripón, Siuna, Nicaragua.

Hi delegates! It's Alaina, one of your Vice Chairs for UNESCO, checking in with you as we inch closer and closer to conference!

I was doing some research on equal and accessible education post-COVID 19 and came across this insightful article discussing some recent developments in Latin America. Feel free to read through the piece, but I'll provide a quick summary of its main points below:

  • The COVID-19 crisis resulted in "significant learning losses," causing a surge in dropout rates and worry about potential gaps in human capital formation for this generation, such as fewer professional skills in the future workplace
  • In the long term, the pandemic may result in a substantial increase in income poverty in Latin America
    • A recent World Bank study argues that students would be more likely to fall into poverty in the future Latin American labor market if compensation measures had not been taken (e.g. virtual classes, providing laptops, etc.) at the time of the crisis
I hope you found this article as interesting as I did. I would be happy to read any recent updates you have found on this topic. Feel free to recommend any good reads in the comments or offer your opinion on this one! Here are some questions to spark your thinking on the issue:
  1. Now that many countries have started to re-open educational institutions, how should these governments grapple with the reality of welfare, labor, and educational losses?
  2. For students who may not have been provided with compensation measures, how should governments reintegrate them back into the labor market, especially when inequalities during the COVID-19 crisis will likely be reproduced in inequalities in the future?
  3. How do these evident losses inform governments about the necessity of prompt responsiveness and ready-built infrastructure to minimize the losses of possible future crises?
I hope these questions help you consider the long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on students, and I hope that you bring these considerations to committee!

All the best,
Alaina Delsignore
UNESCO Vice Chair, BMUN 71

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