LONDON, July 13 (Xinhua) -- Deep budget cuts to education and rising poverty worldwide caused by the COVID-19 pandemic could force at least 9.7 million children out of school forever by the end of this year, a London-based children charity warned Monday.
The world is facing a hidden education emergency as COVID-19 would leave an estimated 77 billion U.S. dollars gap in education spending for the world's poorest children over the next 18 months, said Save the Children in its Save Our Education report.
A vulnerability index in the report showed that in 12 countries, mainly in West and Central Africa along with Yemen and Afghanistan, children are at extremely high risk of not returning to school after the lockdown lift -- especially girls.
In another 28 countries children are at moderate or high risk of not going back to school and of the longer-term effects of widening inequalities. Ten countries and regions, including China, Russia and Argentina, are rated as low risk.
Kevin Watkins, CEO of Save the Children UK, said: "Around 10 million children may never return to school -- this is an unprecedented education emergency and governments must urgently invest in learning."
The reported said before the outbreak, 258 million children and adolescents were already out of school. Currently, more than 1 billion children are out of school due to the global pandemic.
Despite the efforts of governments and organisations, some 500 million children had no access to distance learning, and many of the poorest children may not have literate parents who can help them. Having lost out on months of learning, many children will struggle to catch up, raising the likelihood of drop out, said the report.
Save the Children was founded in 1919 in London. Its organisations have been established in 29 nations around the world.
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