On June 8, South Africa’s schools are expected to reopen their doors to grade 7 and 12 students, who have lost over two months of critical classroom instruction due to COVID-19.

Before the pandemic hit, the education financing gap was already staggering : education financing would need to increase from US$1.2 trillion to US$3 trillion annually to achieve a learning generation.

And public financing disproportionately benefited the rich: in countries like Guinea and the Central African Republic, the government spends over five times more on education for the richest children than the poorest children.

Some governments have already indicated that they may cut financing to education as a result: Nigeria may cut the budget for the primary financing facility for federal contributions to basic education by nearly half .

Once students are in school, governments should implement remedial education and modify the school calendar to mitigate lost instructional time, as well as collect critical data on student progress.