Climate change impact

A recent policy note from the World Bank has said that climate change is seriously eroding education outcomes and has called upon governments across the globe to act urgently to take steps to increase the capacity of education systems in order to adapt to and cope with these increasingly prevalent extreme weather events. The World Bank policy note, as reported in a prominent front-page story in the Sunday edition of this newspaper, has revealed that in the past twenty years, extreme weather events like floods, cyclones, heat waves, etc. have caused schools to remain closed for long periods of each year, which in turn has impacted over five million people across the globe. The duration of school closures is often prolonged when school infrastructure is vulnerable or when schools are used as evacuation centers. Additionally, climate change is also adversely affecting students through increased diseases, stress, and conflict. These factors in turn have severe consequences for children’s educational attainment and achievement, as the policy note has said. What is even more alarming, as has been pointed out, is that climate-induced erosion of learning and education attainment translates into lower future earnings and productivity, especially for those families and communities that are in the lower economic brackets. It is important to note that research has shown that each additional year of schooling leads to a ten percent increase in earnings for an individual. As climate shocks reduce education attainment, future earnings are likely to suffer, perpetuating cycles of poverty and limiting social mobility across generations, the World Bank policy note has stated. This policy note has a lot of significance for Assam, where schools and colleges, particularly in rural areas, remain shut almost every year due to floods. While some educational institutions become non-functional because of inundation and submergence, others remain shut because those are converted into temporary relief camps for the flood-affected people. Even after floods recede and relief camps are closed down, children are faced with the fear of being affected by various post-flood diseases. It is not immediately known whether the Government of Assam has ever prepared any report on how floods—a major climate change disaster for the past several decades—have impacted the education outcomes in Assam. But that climate change impact is gradually on the rise in the state can be gauged from the fact that every year the authorities are increasingly declaring schools closed due to increasing mercury levels across the state. Given this scenario, the World Bank policy notes and suggestions need to be given a serious look by the Government of Assam. The World Bank has called upon governments to take steps to adapt education systems for greater resilience and requires policymakers to act on four fronts: education management, school infrastructure, students and teachers as change agents, and ensuring learning continuity.