Up to 70% of 10-year-olds in low-and middle-income countries cannot read or understand a simple text, up from 53% pre-Covid, the research suggests.

Classroom closures continue to affect more than 635 million children globally, with younger and more marginalised children facing the greatest loss in learning after almost two years of Covid, according to the UN children’s agency, Unicef, which called for intensive support to help students recover.

Across the world, children have lost basic literacy and numeracy skills and their mental and physical health has suffered. In South Africa, schoolchildren are between 75% and a whole school year behind where they should be.

Learning losses have been seen in the US, including in California, Colorado, Tennessee, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and Maryland. In Texas, two-thirds of children in grade 3 (age eight to nine) tested below their grade level in math in 2021, compared with half of children in 2019. (The Guardian 25 Jan 2022).

My comment: This is a disaster. There are already enough people in the US whose general knowledge is sketchy (to say the least) and whose comfort with several other disciplines (math, languages, science, history to name a few) seems shameful.