Coronavirus | Children in Asia struggle to learn advanced literacy skills

Many children in Asia and Africa struggle to learn advanced literacy skills, hindering their ability to study basic subjects. Schools are frequently overcrowded, resources limited and teachers overstrained.

The coronavirus pandemic has set back pupils learning further and closing schools. The limited access to mobile phones and the internet is a barrier to studying remotely.

The FT followed two children determined to pursue their education despite difficulties. Both both have access to programmes to help their reading.

In the village of Charpatia in Madhya Pradesh, India, where male literacy is 20 per cent below female levels, Kirma, eight, uses books in Hindi supported by the Strengthening Academic Leadership for Early Reading initiative, supported by the UN children s fund Unicef and non-profit Room to Read with the state department of education. The family s main dialect is Nimadi.

In the Kibaha in the Tanzanian Pwani region, almost half of children fully attend primary education and a third never attend school at all. Joshua, nine, reads local books by Swahili authors and published by Room To Read.