UNESCO claims, Climate Change affects right to education, Caribbean initiates positive changes

UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) is working towards generating awareness across the world regarding the issues which can bring unbeatable change globally. 

Considering this, the need for climate change education and the Right to Education was highlighted. And, when these got connected, even UNESCO quoted that Climate Change affects the right to education.

An organization mentioned that school disruptions exacerbated poverty, Displacement, and Language Barriers among the impacts caused by Climate Change, which can bring up a change in the Right to Education.

Just a few months ago, UNESCO conducted a detailed region based study to figure out the climatic change impacts on education rights. This study made it possible to keep a record of the trends and challenges connected to it.

And, the reports outlined climate change effects are similar in all the regions. However, the patterns required to change the situations vary as per the socio-economic features of the regions. Even this stated the various different scenarios connecting climate change and the right to education.

Highlighting this connection, it has come forward that natural calamities like floods, hurricanes and many others result in the destruction of schools or sometimes when used as emergency shelters, which directly halts education at schools.

Moreover, the damage done by natural disasters is even directed towards poverty as this leads towards a lack of financial resources, which somehow negatively affects the investments to be made in the education sector, thus impacting the Right to Education.

Even people migrate from the disaster-prone areas to the regions which support safe and secure livelihood due to which the population in the particular region takes an upsurge. In this case, there is a possibility that students may find it difficult to accommodate all the students as every educational institute holds a specific capacity.

Taking this to the Caribbean region, there is no doubt that the region is a disaster prone area, and has gone through worsen conditions. Hurricane Maria of 2017 in Dominica is a clear example of it. Also, vulnerable cyclones and floods have been seen in the region.

But even with this fact, the positives outweigh the negatives because the leaders of the countries are completely dedicated to providing a safer area to live in for the people of the region. An insight into this can even be taken from the recent initiatives by the Government of Dominica where the housing minister of the country, Melissa Skerrit handed over the keys of the Hurricane-resilient homes which were constructed under Dominica Housing Recovery Project.

Interestingly, Dominica is even on its path to becoming the World’s first Climate Resilient Nation by 2030. And, for this country is working in a speedy manner.

Shifting the focus towards other small islands of the Caribbean region, St Kitts and Nevis, the Prime Minister of the country, Terrance Drew in a recent Conference of Parties (COP28) even presented the summary of the participation by the region in the various of the forums, focused on addressing the issue of climatic change. Also, the country has taken a step towards addressing the issues by the introduction of Climate Change Projects.

Significantly, when the overall steps are considered for generating awareness, the Caribbean Development Bank had even launched a series aimed at the awareness generation towards positive climate change, which as a whole was given the name Investing for a Greener World.

All this states the role of the Caribbean region as per the initiatives taken by the Caribbean leaders towards bringing positive change in Climate Change and the Right to Education to offer a better and safer place to the population of the region through the healthy surroundings around.