91�鶹������Ʒ����

The Report, , produced by the Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report and the Regional Bureau for Education in Latin America and the Caribbean (OREALC/UNESCO Santiago), along with the Laboratory of Education, Research and Innovation in Latin America and the Caribbean (SUMMA) shows the lack of good quality data on the most marginalized in education. In the Caribbean, only 4 of 21 countries have had a publicly available household survey since 2015 to disaggregate education indicators by individual characteristics. Six countries do not collect data on disabilities in their education management systems.

Manos Antoninis, Director of the GEM Report, said: “Distance learning during COVID-19 is a poor substitute for classroom teaching and the most marginalized students have fallen even further behind. Remedial programmes will be vital to help these students catch-up. But to know where to invest efforts, as we build back from this crisis, we need to know who to target, and that requires better data. Governments must prioritize this as they make plans for the year ahead.”

Many learners are marginalized from education in the Caribbean, with exclusion existing well before the pandemic. In Suriname, 41% of boys, compared to 58% of girls complete lower secondary school. In Belize, just 19% of the poorest compared to 74% of the richest completed secondary school in 2016. Children with disabilities are also affected. On average, 12- to 17-year-olds with disabilities were 10 percentage points less likely to attend school than those without disabilities in Trinidad and Tobago.

Most countries in the Caribbean have yet to embrace a broad concept of inclusion in their laws and policies, with only 32% of countries defining inclusive education, and only 29% of those definitions covering multiple marginalized groups.

Additionally, Latin American and Caribbean countries have become recipients of large-scale mass forced displacement in recent years, with over 5.2 million Venezuelans displaced as a result of massive economic implosion and political tensions. Of those, about 80,000 are in the non-Spanish-speaking Caribbean countries of Aruba, Curaçao, Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago. Whereas most countries in the region have made elementary and secondary education available to migrants, regardless of legal status, the public education systems of affected countries are facing widespread capacity challenges such as school overcrowding, resource limitations and language barriers. In Trinidad and Tobago, regulations have not yet been established to guarantee the right to education of migrants and refugees from Venezuela, which has led national and international civil society actors to work together to meet their needs.

Together with the Covid-19 pandemic, this has caused massive disruptions to education and further complicating the learning outcomes of the most vulnerable and marginalized among other factors.

Saadia Sanchez-Vegas, Director and Representative of the UNESCO Cluster Office for the Caribbean reiterated that "This is a complex task that requires multi-stakeholder coalitions and deliberate actions on the part of governments – ministries of education, civil society, private sector and development partners. In the context of the pandemic it is imperative to invest in education systems to get back on track towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4 by 2030."

According to Javier González, Director at SUMMA: “Inclusion in Caribbean schools is also challenged when boys disengage from education. Many poorer students are caught by false notions of hard work being a feminine trait, pressures to join gangs, but also family needs to earn a living. This results in boys in school often ending up stigmatized and penalized”.

Education systems should adapt to learners, rather than the other way around. Reflecting on the fact that teacher training tends not to be in the framework of inclusive education in the Caribbean, Claudia Uribe, Director of OREALC/UNESCO Santiago, said: “There is the expectation that teachers have strategies to compensate for these disadvantages, but it is difficult if they do not have the tools and training to do so.”

In some countries in the region, adaptation to children’s first language has been insufficient, constituting a barrier to education. In Anguilla, children from the growing Spanish-speaking community account for up to 25% of enrolment in some primary schools. Initiatives to support learning English as a second language exist in primary schools but are not available in secondary school.

Countries in the region have taken steps to remove physical barriers in education but facilities remain inadequate in many places. In Jamaica, a survey of 41 primary and 43 secondary schools, representing 10% of schools in the country, concluded that 24% had ramps and only 11% had accessible bathrooms.

Catherina Schönhammer, c.schonhammer@unesco.org

Kate Redman, GEM REPORT, k.redman@unesco.org

Carolina Jerez, OREALC/UNESCO SANTIAGO, c.jerez@unesco.org