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Two-thirds of school-age children lack access to the internet at home, even as the COVID-19 pandemic makes online education the only possible access to education, the United Nations said Tuesday.
In total, 1.3 billion children between the ages of 3 and 17 do not have an internet connection at home, specifies a joint report by Unicef and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
For the 15-24 age group, the percentage of those without internet access at home is 63%.
“The fact that so many children do not have access to the Internet at home is no longer a digital divide, but a canyon”, worried the head of Unicef, Henrietta Fore.
Not being able to go online deprives these young people of the means “to compete in the modern economy”. It isolates them from the world, “he added.
This situation is particularly serious at a time when the pandemic has prompted many countries to temporarily close schools and switch teaching online.
“To put it bluntly: the lack of internet access deprives the next generations of their future,” Ms. Fore insisted.
The report points out that even before COVID-19, the digital divide was part of the rise in inequalities, making recovery difficult for children deprived of access.
According to the United Nations, 1 in 20 school-age children are connected at home in low-income countries, compared with 9 in 10 in rich countries.
The worst countries are in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, where only 10% of children can connect at home.
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