Children’s Education Can Be Ruined By Hurricanes

Major weather events, particularly hurricanes, can permanently affect children’s education. PNAS published a paper titled “Decreased likelihood of schooling as a consequence of tropical cyclones: Evidence from 13 low—and middle-income countries” that showed this.

In summary, “Here, we study the underexplored impacts of tropical cyclones on schooling in low- and middle-income countries. Data from 5.4 million individuals across 13 countries shows that children exposed to tropical cyclones during preschool have a significantly higher likelihood of no schooling, especially among girls.”  The hardest hit areas were ones in which storms were very rare 

A Twenty-Year Test

“Between 2000 and 2020, we estimate that 79,000 children did not start school”  or “schooling was slowed or reduced”.

The growth of violent storms and those more frequent has made this worse and will continue to do so. The areas most affected were in parts of India, Australia, and around the Gulf of Mexico and the South Atlantic. These last two locations included parts of the US.

The researchers admitted that fixing the problem would be very difficult. It would involve a partnership between local officials, local schools, and the federal government.

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