Home · Faith · Sep 25 archive
Climate Crisis Disrupts Education for Millions of Children
Confirmed
In Short: Pakistan experienced one of the year’s most severe climate-related education impacts, with August’s monsoon floods delaying the return to school for more than 28 million students.
UNICEF's analysis, Learning Interrupted: Global Snapshot of Climate-Related School Disruptions in 2025, reveals that floods, storms, and droughts are the leading causes of school disruptions worldwide, affecting at least 171 million students.
In Niger, floods delayed the start of the 2025-2026 school year by two weeks, impacting 4 million children, marking the second consecutive year of such disruptions.
The report highlights that storms, floods, and droughts cause $200 billion in education losses annually, with three-quarters of affected students living in low or lower-middle income countries.
Droughts, less visible due to their cumulative nature, directly affected 2 million students in the report’s standardised sample, a figure that increases significantly when considering humanitarian crisis contexts like Somalia, Kenya, and Syria.
UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell emphasized the severe impact of climate hazards on children's education, stating, “For millions of children, climate hazards do more than disrupt lessons, they destroy schools, uproot families, and push the most vulnerable children, especially girls, out of the classroom for good.”
Russell also noted that 40 countries experienced multiple rounds of climate-related school disruptions during the year.
UNICEF is calling for increased domestic and international financing for education resilience, greater investment in climate-resilient school infrastructure, and stronger climate and education data systems.
The report, which analyzed data from 106 countries and territories, found that floods affected at least 70 million students, while heatwaves disrupted schooling for approximately 50 million children.
Theirworld, an organization dedicated to improving education in emergency contexts, has contributed to the distribution of more than 195,000 laptops and tablets to keep children’s learning on track despite ongoing conflicts.
Theirworld has also collaborated with the Ukrainian government on a state-of-the-art Museum of Mathematics to help children who have fallen behind in school accelerate their understanding of mathematics and be prepared with the skills to rebuild the country.
What this adds
UNICEF's report underscores the disproportionate impact of climate hazards on education in low and lower-middle income countries.
The report highlights the cumulative nature of droughts and their significant impact on education, especially in humanitarian crisis contexts.
What's confirmed
- Pakistan saw one of the year’s most severe episodes: August’s monsoon floods delayed the return to school for more than 28 million students, one of the largest climate-related education impacts recorded anywhere in 2025.
What's still developing
- We pioneered an innovative model that allowed Syrian refugee children to be educated in Lebanon’s schools, with minimal investment and maximum impact.
- War, conflict and humanitarian emergencies disrupt education for more than 75 million children each year, keeping them out of education and leaving them without a safe place to learn.
- In conflict and crisis, education is often the first thing lost and the last thing restored.
- Education provides children with much needed stability – a routine, access to essential services and trauma support – as well as with hope and opportunity for a better future.
- Across the Middle East, we’re working with local partners to provide vital education programmes that give children impacted by conflict and displacement a safe place to learn.
- We worked to improve education in refugee camps on the Greek islands and provided a blueprint for the government and the UN to ensure quality education for every refugee child.
- UNICEF’s Children’s Climate Risk Report 2026, released in June, found that nearly half of the world’s children, or 1.1 billion, are exposed to at least three overlapping climate hazards that threaten their health, education and survival.
- Kenya’s leading newspaper on education, widely read by teachers, students, lecturers, parents, and key education stakeholders nationwide.
- Addressing the National Teachers’ Awards ceremony in New Delhi on the occasion of Teachers’ Day, the President said school education forms the foundation of the entire education system and teachers have a vital responsibility in ensuring the intellectual, physical and moral development of children.
- “By diligently focusing on the intellectual, physical, and moral development of children in the early grades, our teachers can prepare future generations of excellent students and dutiful citizens,” Murmu said.
- The President also highlighted the role of education in ensuring equality of opportunity, describing it as the most effective means of realising the constitutional ideal of providing equal opportunities to all.
- Murmu said many children belong to economically disadvantaged families, with some being first-generation learners.