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Why children's health assessment post-COVID-19 matters
Our efforts to contain the transmission of COVID-19 have resulted in a decrease in parental income, so the quantity and quality of food provided to children may have also declined.
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Desk ready: Students of SD 010 Batam Kota state elementary school in Batam, Riau Islands attend in-class learning on Jan. 10. The local authorities allow schools to welcome back all their students following low rates of COVID-19 cases. (Antara/Teguh Prihatna)
COVID-19 has not only caused a learning crisis but has also had a devastating impact on the health of children around the world.
We will never know how deeply COVID-19 has indirectly had negative impacts on our children without us assessing them directly and thoroughly.
According to government data, over 60 million students and 4 million teachers in the country have been affected by school closures since March 2020. As of Sept. 6, 2021, 39 percent of schools had reopened for limited face-to-face learning, in line with the national guidelines.
The return of our children to school after the decline in the transmission of COVID-19 provides an opportunity for the Education, Culture, Research and Technology Ministry to conduct a thorough assessment of the magnitude of the negative impacts about which so far we can only speculate.
Collaboration between the education ministry and the Health Ministry is also an option to make health assessments more accurate and professional. Assessments conducted online will not be sufficient to learn the true impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on children's health and well-being. The government needs to directly deploy health workers to schools to assess one by one the health of our children.
The UNICEF report entitled "COVID-19 and Children" can help us identify what aspects schools need to look at with our children resuming their in-class learning. These include educational, health, economic and social aspects.
The government has acknowledged a learning crisis as a result of the pandemic, which has led to the closure of schools for 168 million children worldwide for almost a whole year. However, we must understand that the impact of COVID-19 has not only caused the worst learning loss in the history of our education, but also in the following other aspects.
