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 Schools and other public buildings have been closed because they are
believed to increase the spread of the virus. Many are now used as
holding centers for Ebola patients.
The report, co-written with A World at School, said being out of
school can have a crippling impact on vulnerable children,
especially girls, who are more likely to face high-risk situations
as a result, including early marriage and pregnancy.
If schools are not reopened, the most vulnerable children will
become trapped in a cycle of poverty with devastating consequences
for their health and economic development, the report said.
"With children out of school indefinitely, Ebola threatens to
reverse years of educational progress in west Africa where literacy
rates are already low and school systems are only now recovering
from years of civil war," U.N. Special Envoy for Global Education,
Gordon Brown, said in the report.
All three countries have some of the lowest primary school
completion rates in the world, according to World Bank figures. In
Guinea, 61 percent of children complete primary school, in Liberia
65 percent, with Sierra Leone doing marginally better at 72 percent.
Many children are less likely to return to the classroom if they
have been out of school for a year, according to the report, Ebola
Emergency: Restoring Education, Creating Safe Schools and Preventing
Long-term Crisis.
Ebola, a rare tropical disease has killed more than 6,000 people and
infected more than 16,000 people in west Africa, where poverty,
corruption and civil war have left a weak health system unable to
cope with the exponential spread of the disease in the
worst-affected countries.
"It is imperative that the business community takes a leadership
role in the prioritization of education during humanitarian crises,"
Aliko Dangote, a founding member of the Global Business Coalition
for Education, said in the report.
Innovative teaching through radio, television, mobile phones and
internet should be used until schools can be safely reopened, the
report said.
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Schools need to be cleaned and disinfected before reopening, and
teachers trained to spot the signs of Ebola and stop its spread.
Schools also need better water and sanitation facilities, the report
said.
The government should also help schools prepare for future
emergencies, the report said.
Last month, the government in Sierra Leone pioneered a new approach
to teaching children out of school via the radio, Sierra Leone's
Minister for Information Alpha Kanu told the Thomson Reuters
Foundation.
"The radio (and television) programs have been welcomed by parents
as well as pupils, who on a daily basis, studiously, sit by their
radio. The fact they are engaged is a sign of success," Kanu said.
Liberia has introduced similar measures, according to the U.N.
Children's Fund (UNICEF).
(Reporting by Misha Hussain; Editing by Alex Whiting)
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