Toolkit
This toolkit is for USAID Mission staff and their partner national and local education officials, implementing partners, and administrators and educators of education institutions.
The COVID-19 pandemic presents an unprecedented global challenge. In early April 2020, approximately 1.6 billion learners, from pre-primary through higher education, were affected by school closures in at least 194 countries—91.3 percent of the world’s enrolled students. Since then, countries have begun reopening education institutions.
Crisis situations such as conflict, natural disasters, or health epidemics, like COVID-19, regularly force education institutions to close, albeit usually on a more localized level than the current pandemic. Despite educators’ best efforts to sustain learning and routines through distance education during crises, many learners experience extreme hardships, creating new barriers to access and learning.
USAID's Return to Learning during Crises Policy Brief provides a practical framework for planning and implementing key actions that help children and youth resume their education following a disruption. The framework provides guidance around five priorities and integrates cross-cutting considerations related to equity and inclusion; safety; community engagement; monitoring, evaluation and learning; and policy and financing.