The World Bank is asking countries to focus on early childhood education

The World Bank (WB) has called on Latin American governments to increase efforts and investments for recovery early childhood education considering the possible risk that the disruptions caused by the covid-19 pandemic in the region have not been corrected.

That’s what they indicated Emanuel Di Gropellohead of the education sector for Latin America and the Caribbean ZB, i Magdalena Bendinisenior WB economist related to early education.

“The best thing that governments in the region could do at this moment is to invest more, put more effort into childhood educationDi Gropello said.

I confirm that “The impact of the pandemic was very strong” and he gave the example that before the medical emergency “just over half of 10-year-old children were unable to read and understand simple text”, a figure that has increased.

“After the pandemic, that share increased in all countries”, added the expert and pointed out that the “most worrying thing” is that it had “more influence” on children from 4 to 10 years old.

Di Gropello pointed out that “efforts have been made” in Latin American countries to implement reforms, policies and programs, which is “very welcome”, and he pointed out that “It is extremely important to focus on the basics to recover (…) and the fundamental thing is literacy and the basics of mathematics.”

The representative of the World Bank emphasized the importance of focusing on early childhood education, because “if we really want to have a true recovery and a sustainable recovery, it will have to go through the base, for the youngest boys“.

“Our message at this time is keep up the effort because there is a risk that a lot still needs to be recovered and that then the children are not well positioned to have a successful educational path in their lives”, he pointed out.

For his part, Bendini pointed out that “ Delays left by the pandemic in education” are 1.5 years on average and stated that “you cannot restore the post-pandemic ‘status quo’ before the pandemic.”

“If we want to recover, what we have to do is accelerate learning,” Bendini added, stressing that early childhood education “lays the foundations for cognitive development”which is “crucial for children to reach primary school with the tools to take advantage of the investments made by states.”