Startling disparities in digital learning emerge as COVID-19 spreads: UN education agency

With most of the world’s students now at home due to COVID-19, the pandemic is revealing startling divides in digitally-based distance learning, data from the UN education and cultural agency, UNESCO, and partners has revealed

They found that half of all students currently out of the classroom – or nearly 830 million learners globally — do not have access to a computer. Additionally, more than 40 per cent have no Internet access at home.

The figures were compiled by the Teacher Task Force, an international alliance coordinated by UNESCO, using data from the UN agency’s Institute for Statistics and the International Telecommunication