Educations ruined by Covid lockdowns will impact the world for years, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned, as it said the outlook for the global economy is the “bleakest” it has been in decades. The Telegraph has more.
The IMF warned that “scars from the pandemic, including to students’ learning and human capital formation, could weigh on economies for years to come”.
Global GDP is expected to grow by just 3% per year in the immediate future, the economists said. That is well below the 3.9% average seen over the period from 2000 to 2019, which included the global financial crisis and the underwhelming recovery from the credit crunch.
The IMF blamed disrupted education, a wave of retirement and sickness that has forced people out of the jobs market, and heightening global tensions that are breaking economic links between countries.
Other factors holding back growth include “slower than previously anticipated pace of structural reforms, lower projections for labour force growth, and increasing pressures from geoeconomic fragmentation”.
At the same time the global economy can no longer rely on the support of a rapidly growing Chinese economy, which bolstered growth in the early years of this century.
Surging inflation in the post-pandemic world has also damaged economies.
The blame goes on the ‘pandemic’, but it was the lockdowns that harmed education of course, not a virus that mainly just kills the elderly at a rate around 10% higher than usual for a year or two.
But have we learned? Not if the Covid Inquiry is any indication.
Worth reading in full.
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A determined effort by teachers and parents could put this right but there is no will or commitment to do it.
after having so much time off work (oh yes they did) teachers ought to put in extra hours, maybe in minimum wage, to fill in the arrears.
any parent whose child did not attend and pay attention in any school lesson should be penalised.
You can thank the teachers for that… Needing a year off work so they didn’t catch a sniffle…
“Education Lost to Lockdowns Will “Scar World for Years”, Says IMF”, whose motive for saying such for now remains unclear.
As lockdowns were entirely avoidable, but encouraged by sister organisations to the IMF – WHO, etc – one is intrigued to see how the IMF will use this societal vandalism to its advantage.
Unclear to me too but unlikely to be positive. The base assumption they make is always that there was a deadly pandemic about which something must be done.
”The blame goes on the ‘pandemic’, “. Not the globally coordinated response to ‘the pandemic’ which locked people up in their houses for months on end and paid them for doing nothing with money from the magic money tree.
I routinely politely correct any friend who says something was “caused by The Pandemic” to “caused by The Lockdown”. Small nudges, repeated as nauseam, might have an effect.
I think we’ve got a way to go before we’re competing with David Halpern et al.
(Yeah, I do it too – though sometimes less than politely.)
The UK could just about afford to pay people to stay at home and do sweet FA for a while. The UK government borrowed heavily to do it – but the collapse in demand from the UK and other developed countries also destroyed businesses in developing countries which could not afford a furlough scheme. Yes, I believe many people died and more were forced into poverty because of developed countries’ lockdown policies. The developed countries’ governments chasing after ‘borrowing’ (selling IOUs) froze out less developed countries from the big money lenders – again to the detriment of the poorest.
No we couldn’t, and we’re paying for it now.
Yes we could – and did, by indenturing future generations of workers to pay it off.
Exactly. That means we couldn’t afford it.
No, no. Surely it was Brexit.
N.S.S
The whole idea of “lockdown” being a good idea undermined education and put it on the back foot. If the students believe in it’s efficacy, they have been misinformed, and hopefully will be re-educated in the longer term.
I said this loudly when it was implemented & decried as selfish, dangerous, thoughtless & a granny killer….
No I wasn’t & I’m none of the above – well, I’ll take dangerous as I keep getting censored – I was & remain an advocate for the health & welfare of children.