There’s a global education emergency. In March 2020 school closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic forced 91% of the world’s children out of school. It arrived on top of the climate crisis, which was already undermining fragile education systems around the world and placing the most vulnerable and poorest children at risk.
Education is a fundamental right for all children, and a vital tool to build a better future and break the cycle of poverty. But the onset and spread of COVID-19 has led to children missing school on a global scale never experienced before and has caused the greatest threat ever to the promise of a quality education for all.
Globally, the pandemic arrived on top of an existing learning crisis. The poorest and most marginalised children – girls, refugees, children with disabilities – were already less likely to be in school and learning, but COVID-19 threatens to place any progress the world was beginning to make in reverse.
Send My Friend to School brings together thousands of children across the UK to speak up for the right to education.