Children may lose 1.5 years of schooling due to climate change: UNESCO

Children exposed to extreme heatwaves could lose up to 1.5 years of schooling, with climate change now directly impacting education systems and threatening to reverse decades of academic progress, according to a new global report from UNESCO.

The report, compiled by UNESCO’s Global Education Monitoring (GEM) team, the Monitoring and Evaluating Climate Communication and Education (MECCE) project, and the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, warns of significant learning losses due to climate-related disruptions.

These include heatwaves, wildfires, floods, droughts, storms, diseases and rising sea levels.

The study revealed that most low-and middle-income countries experience climate-related school closures every year, increasing the risk of learning loss and student dropouts.

Over the past 20 years, schools were closed in at least 75 per cent of extreme weather events affecting five million or more



people.

The report linked heat exposure to reduced educational outcomes. In 29 countries studied between 1969 and 2012, higher temperatures during the prenatal and early life stages were associated with fewer years of schooling, especially in Southeast Asia.

“A child experiencing temperatures that are two standard deviations above average is predicted to attain 1.5 fewer years of schooling than children experiencing average temperatures,” the Unesco report noted.

The report calls for urgent policy interventions to make education systems more resilient to climate change.

These include upgrading school infrastructure, incorporating climate education into curricula, and ensuring that disaster response plans are in place and effective.

As extreme weather events grow more frequent and intense, safeguarding children’s right to uninterrupted, quality education must become a global priority.