Standing in front of India's Taj Mahal, tour guide Raju Usmani fears for his daughter's future. With COVID-19 decimating his income, he may have to pull her out of school just as she is catching up after nearly two years stuck at home.
Areeba, 10, is among 1.6 billion children globally — more than 90% of all school students — who have been affected by pandemic school closures, which threaten to widen wealth inequalities both within and between countries.
"We're running the risk of a lost generation," U.N. education expert Robert Jenkins told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "It's a now-or-never moment to turn things around."