The pandemic blocks education in the world

The UN secretary general has sounded an alarm about the school situation; it is a world-wide alarm caused by the closure of schools and universities, which affects over 160 countries worldwide, equal to one billion students, of which more than 40 million children. The lack of possibility of school attendance, especially in the age groups that concern kindergartens, elementary and middle schools, means a deficit ranging from that of learning to that of socializing and the ability to be together, which will be potentially capable of creating large relational deficits in the adults of tomorrow. A further aspect is linked to the school as a social tool also as a shock absorber for families who cannot count on help in custody of their children. This lack risks causing loss of income if a parent has to leave work. The emergency solutions with distance learning have shown that this choice has only partially filled the gaps caused by direct teaching, both for the lack of preparation of teachers for this sudden solution, both for the technological difficulties and also for the unequal distribution of IT tools in families. However, the invitation of the United Nations secretary to reopen the schools, compatibly with the control of the possible transmission of the virus, raises questions about the appropriateness of this choice without adequate security regarding the control of the spread of the virus and its treatments. According to some virologists, the danger of a greater spread of the contagion or a return of the same in countries where the numbers of the pandemic have dropped, would seem to be linked to the younger groups of the population, which could act as a preferential vehicle for the virus. If there is no absolute certainty of these hypotheses, there is also no opposite certainty. The choice, at the moment, seems to be limited exclusively to limiting the immediate effects of the pandemic with the price to be paid in terms of lack of education and also the loss of socialization of the younger population. This is a terrible dilemma, which affects the economy in the short and in the very long term, a choice that cannot be all on one side rather than the other. The solutions that must be found must necessarily be mediations, also capable of finding immediate solutions that may no longer be valid in the same short period. What is missing to stabilize the situation, but not only with regard to education, is to have a safe and affordable method of examination, a certain cure and a vaccine without contraindications, which can be spread worldwide, therefore with a minimal cost. At the moment these three conditions do not seem to be close, so efforts must be made to find temporary solutions. On the other hand, the dangers denounced by the United Nations are undoubtedly true and certain: an educational crisis would have the result of increasing inequalities both between rich and poor states, and within advanced nations themselves, with students belonging to the upper classes certainly favored compared to those of the middle and poor classes. Only temporary solutions, but who knows how much, elaborated by local or supranational governments, when they have the possibility to provide political guidelines, they can create presuppositions, however temporary and never definitive, because classroom teaching is not replaceable, to limit the damage of the current situation. The remedies have already been used, albeit in a limited way, the increase in distance learning, which must however be interspersed with periods of return to class (with all possible precautions) requires contributions for the purchase of computer equipment for families (an obstacle not difficult to overcome, thanks to the ever lower cost of IT equipment), but above all with the greater diffusion of IT transport networks, both in the diffusion of optical fiber and in the acceleration of the 5G service. What the pandemic highlighted was the lack of preparation, on a general level but above all of poor countries, regarding the delay in communication infrastructures, which are increasingly essential to social and economic development, understood as a factor capable of limiting the effects of isolation on education but also as a multiplier of production capacity.