I nternationa I The Economist March 21st 2020 53
School dosuresMid-term break
TREVISO
How the corid-ig pandemic is interrupting children's education
C
HILDRBN USUALLY rejoice in a break
from school, assuming it will be a
chance to slack off. Not Ryu, a nine-year-
old in Tokyo. As the new coronavirus
spread across Japan, schools throughout
the country closed on March 2nd. His par-
ents have enforced a strict schedule every
day. It includes Japanese, science and phys-
ical education. He does mathematics on
bis abacus every morning. on weekdays he
is allowed to play in a park for 90 minutes.
"I wish I could tm him to the park more,
but we have limited time as we work from
home,u frets his mother, Fujimaki Natsuko.
Ryu is one of almost 1bn students
around the world whose schooling has
been interrupted as a result of covid-19 (see
map overleaf). As 71te Ba>namist went to
press, just over 100 countries including
China, Italy and south Korea had closed
their schools, as had 43 states in America,
as part of efforts to contain covid-19. Brit-
ain will close all schools on .March 20th.
Schools, where sticky-fingered children
gather evezy day, sharing toys and sucking
on pencils, are an obvious place for dis-
eases to flourish. In 2oia Britain's Health
Protection Agency looked at flu outbreaks
that coincided with school closures. It
found that shutting them slowed the trans-
mission of the virus, even if it also slowed
the ttansmisslon of knowledge.
ni.e data on whether school closures
will curb covid-ig are limited. Children
may not be the •main routes of tr.msmis-
sion·, says Michael Head, who studies glo-
bal health at the University of southamp-
ton. And the economic, social and
educational costs are heavy. on March nth
Bill de Blasio, the mayor of New York, said
there were ·maoy, many reasons~ not to
close the city's i,800 schools (though on
March 16th it did just that, shuttering
America's largest school system for at least
four weeks). For all governments, deciding
whether or not to close schools is a choice
between two bad options.
A study in 2009 modelling the effects of
closing all schools and formal day-care
centres in America for a month put the cost
at 0.1-0.3% of GDP. some countries seem
better prepared to deal with the economicimpact. In China the nationwide closures
came with government-mandated work-
from-home policies and subsidies for com-
panies to enable their employees to do so.
But in Japan not all parents are entitled to
work from home or to take paid sick leave.
In Italy one-fifth of workers are self-em-
ployed and so do not qualify for sick pay.
People in precarious work may lose their
jobs altogether if they have to stay at home
to look after children.
For poor children, schools may provide
the most nutritious meal of the day.
Around 26m children in American
schools-roughly half of all students-
quallfy for free or reduced-price lunches.
In New York City 22,000 children sleep in
municipal shelters. Some school districts
in New York are setting up piclcup points so
that the hard-up can still get free meals.
Britain has said it will continue to provide
those children who ordinarily get free
school meals with food.
Officials must always take such costs
into a.a:ount But in the middle of a pan-
demic there is an extta consideration. The
study in 2009 estimated that, Jf schools are
closed for a month, between 6%and19%of
key health-care workers would have to stay
at home to take care of their offspring. Brit-
ain will keep schools running for vulner-
able children and those whose parents are
key workers.
For most parents, however, the imme-
diate wony is how prolonged school clo-
sures will affect their children's education. ~