Does closing school’s close lives?

The closure of schools is, of course, damaging to children's education. But schools are not just a place for learning. They are places where kids socialize, develop emotionally and, for some, a refuge from troubled family life” Prof Russell Viner, President of the Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health UK, said it most clearly when he told MPs on the Education Select Committee: "When we close schools we close their lives." 

They are not likely to get seriously ill with Covid and there have been very few deaths. But children are still the victims of the virus and our response to it in many other ways. From increasing rates of mental health problems to concerns about rising levels of abuse and neglect and the potential harm being done to the development of children, the pandemic has and is threatening to have a devastating effect on the worlds and Sri Lankan youth.  

He says the pandemic has caused a range of harms to children from being isolated and lonely to suffering from sleep problems and obesity along with unhealthy habits caused by reduced physical activity and in some cases fresh air. 

It's not just the closure of schools. The stress the pandemic has put on families, with rising levels of unemployment and financial insecurity combined with the stay-at-home orders, has put strain on home life up and down the island. 

In the UK the NSPCC says the amount of counselling for loneliness provided by its Childline service has risen by 10% since the pandemic started. Neil Homer, who has been volunteering for the service since 2009, has never known anything like it. "It's had a devastating impact," he says. 

We don’t have statistics in Sri Lanka but experts agree that mental health problems are on the rise and there are clear signs the upheaval in children's lives is having an impact on children's mental health when you listen to a local news channel and some of the sad and strange acts committed by children. 

The Mental Health of Children and Young People in England 2020 report, which is produced by NHS Digital and the Office for National Statistics has been tracking more than 3,000 young people over the last four years. Its latest findings, published in the autumn, found overall one in six children aged five to 16 had a probable mental health disorder, up from one in nine three years previously. With older girls had the highest rates. 

Children involved in the research cited family tensions and financial concerns as well as feeling isolated from friends and fear about the virus for causing their distress. Older teenagers and adolescents have been affected too as they have seen their prospects shrink. And from the Youth it was found more than half of young people were always or often feeling anxious - the highest level ever recorded and the fears exacerbated as young people are "losing all hope for their future". 

The invisible cost of the virus and lockdowns experts suggest however with evidence that’s yet to be proven that children, youth and teenagers are being "harmed" by what is the secondary indirect impact of the virus and children specially in sub urban / vertical living low cost housing areas with disabilities almost 'incarcerated'. 

The situation for children with learning disabilities in Sri Lanka is that too many children living with disabilities are missing out on the benefits of education. In 2016, UNICEF Sri Lanka commissioned the ‘Learning Disabilities in Sri Lanka’ report, and it found that: 

-23.5% of children aged 5-14 with disabilities are excluded from mainstream education (DCS, Statistical Data 2012) and amongst those who do attend mainstream schools, participation in educational activity reduces with age. 

-Around 55.4% of the disabled population aged 15-19 and 86% of the disabled population aged 20-24 are not engaged in any educational activity or vocational training. 

-The main challenges for children living with disabilities in benefiting from education cited a lack of skilled teachers, a lack of appropriate infrastructure in schools, limited scope in curricula and the overall quality of education. 

These UN Sri Lanka figures are from 2016, I am sure the 2020/21 figure has a larger gap to be filled and with the nature of the pandemic and the response to it we have created even greater challenges for many of these children and their families. 

Those with the most complex conditions who may have required care at home from specialist nurses and carers this definitely would have become harder to obtain as they would have been redeployed for Covid-19 duties. 

So with the challenges posed by Covid-19 and the lockdown in some cases children have ended up "incarcerated" in their homes. "There are some who have barely had any formal education since lockdown began." 

Since most independent children & youth have struggled, with closures and online classes etc the estimates that more than half of the parents & guardians have been unable to address the additional learning needs of children with special needs who are learning remotely. 

The pandemic has made abuse 'invisible' for some children, the pandemic has had dire consequences with the numbers being harmed and abused on the rise. With the police confusion deployed to catch lockdown breakers etc there are no statics in Sri Lanka of rise in reports of these cases except a few high profile media / political motivated cases. 

In the UK according to published research between April and September there were 285 reports by councils of child deaths and incidents of serious harm, which includes child sexual exploitation. This was a rise of more than a quarter on the same period the year before. But children's commissioner for England, Anne Longfield, is worried this is just the tip of the iceberg, arguing the lockdowns, closure of schools and stay-at-home orders have led to a generation of vulnerable children becoming "invisible" to social workers. 

Figures in the UK show that before the pandemic there were already more than two million children in England and Wales living in households affected by one of the "toxic trio" - domestic abuse, parental drug and alcohol dependency or severe mental health issues. The fear is this will have risen significantly. 

Sunil Bhopal, an expert in child health at Newcastle University, agrees. He says too many people dismiss the impact on children, claiming they are "resilient" and will "bounce back". He believes this is misguided and instead growing up in a world where even "playing with your friends is illegal" threatens to cause long-lasting damage to many. "I don't think it is an exaggeration to say children and their families have been abandoned." 

Globally experts warn that children will be living with the legacy of the pandemic for "years to come", particularly those from disadvantaged communities, and wants to see a major investment in support for all children specially the physically and mentally challenged.