Children suffered the worst long-term consequences of the lockdowns. “The State of Global Learning Poverty: 2022 Update,” found that an alarming 70% of middle and lower-class 10-year-olds across the globe cannot read. There is no greater freedom than knowledge, and reading comprehension is essential to our modern-day existence. “Only the richer segments of the population—those with broadband connectivity, access to devices for the use of each family member, a place to study, availability of books and learning material, and a conducive home environment, among other conditions—were able to maintain a reasonable level of education engagement,” the study cited. We are now in the midst of an education crisis where children have fallen perhaps too far behind to catch up with their peers.
Latin America, the Caribbean, and South Asia saw the most notable declines in learning as schools there completely closed and many did not have access to online education. Sadly, many of the organizations that pushed for the lockdowns and school closures, such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, would like to step in to help re-educate these children. They will try to reshape an entire generation of vulnerable children as they see fit. “Fighting this learning crisis is the challenge of our times if we do not want to lose this generation of children and youth,” the report said.
“COVID-19 has devastated learning around the world, dramatically increasing the number of children living in Learning Poverty,” said Jaime Saavedra, Global Director for Education at the World Bank. “With 7 in 10 of today’s 10-year-olds in low- and middle-income countries now unable to read a simple text, political leaders and society must swiftly move to recover this generation’s future by ensuring learning recovery strategies and investments.” They are calling this phenomenon “learning poverty,” but the issue was not based on class. This drastic decline in reading comprehension is a direct result of lockdowns and school closures.
The report tries to claim that “learning poverty” was prevalent before the lockdown, but there is no denying that allowing children to miss 273 days of school in certain areas of the world caused this problem. The report says learning poverty violates children’s right to education, but the lockdowns and tyrannical crackdown on a largely unlethal virus harmed ALL children across the globe.
So now, children risk losing $21 trillion in lifetime earnings, equivalent to 17% of global GDP. Our model has been targeting 2030 for many years as a major turning point. Unsurprisingly, this report claims that if we follow the guidance of the same agencies who forced school closures, we can attain a newly indoctrinated, I mean educated, population by 2030.
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