Nearly 250 million children missed school last year because of extreme weather, UNICEF says

CAPE TOWN: At least 242 million children in 85 countries had their schooling interrupted last year because of heatwaves, cyclones, flooding and other extreme weather, the United Nations Children's Fund said in a new report Friday. UNICEF said it amounted to one in seven school-going children across the world being kept out of class at some point in 2024 because of climate hazards.

The report also outlined how some countries saw hundreds of their schools destroyed by weather, with low-income nations in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa hit especially hard. But other regions weren't spared the extreme weather, as torrential rains and floods in Italy near the end of the year disrupted school for more than 900,000 children.

Thousands had their classes halted after catastrophic flooding in Spain. While southern Europe dealt with deadly floods and Asia and Africa had flooding and cyclones, heatwaves were “the predominant climate hazard shuttering schools last year,” UNICEF said, as the earth recorded its hottest year ever.

More than 118 million children had their schooling interrupted in April alone, UNICEF said, as large parts of the Middle East and Asia, from Gaza in the west to the Philippines in the southeast, experienced a sizzling weeks long heatwave with temperatures soaring above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).

“Children are more vulnerable to the impacts of weather-related crises, including stronger and more frequent heatwaves, storms, droughts and flooding,” UNICEF executive director Catherine Russell said in a statement. “Children's bodies are uniquely vulnerable. They heat up faster, they sweat less efficiently, and cool down more slowly than adults. Children cannot concentrate in classrooms that offer no respite from sweltering heat, and they cannot get to school if the path is flooded, or if schools are washed away."

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World's schools, education systems "ill-equipped"

Around 74% of the children affected in 2024 were in middle- and low-income countries, showing how climatic extremes continue to have a devastating impact in the poorest countries. Flooding ruined more than 400 schools in Pakistan in April. Afghanistan had heatwaves followed by severe flooding that destroyed over 110 schools in May, UNICEF said.

Months of drought in southern Africa exacerbated by the El Niño weather phenomenon threatened the schooling and futures of millions of children. And the crises showed little sign of abating. The poor French territory of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean off Africa was left in ruins by Cyclone Chido in December and hit again by Tropical Storm Dikeledi this month, leaving children across the islands out of school for six weeks.

Cyclone Chido also destroyed more than 330 schools and three regional education departments in Mozambique on the African mainland, where access to education is already a deep problem. UNICEF said the world's schools and education systems “are largely ill-equipped” to deal with the effects of extreme weather.