Covid learning loss has been a global disaster

King norvic tarroyo lives with his parents and five siblings in a slum near the sea wall in Manila, the capital of the Philippines. The eight-year-old has not set foot in a school since March 2020, when classrooms closed as a precaution against covid-19. Twenty-seven months later his school, like thousands of others across the country, remains shut. A year ago teachers gave him a tablet computer for remote learning. But his mother says he uses it for only a few hours each day. After that, he pretends to snooze or scampers into alleys near his home. His mum sometimes does his schoolwork for him.