Bangkok, Thailand:

Record-breaking heat last month that prompted governments in Asia to close schools offers fresh evidence of how climate change is threatening the education of millions of children.

The arrival of seasonal rains has now brought relief to some parts of the region, but experts warn the broader problem remains, and many countries are poorly prepared to handle the impacts of climate change on schooling.

Asia is warming faster than the global average, and climate change is producing more frequent, longer, and more intense heatwaves.

But heat is not the only challenge.

A warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, which can result in heavy rains and flooding.

This can damage schools or put them out of commission while they are used as shelters.

Hot weather can also drive wildfires and spikes in air pollution, which have caused school closures everywhere from India to Australia.

“The climate crisis is already a reality for children in East Asia and Pacific,” the UN children’s agency UNICEF warned last year.

Mohua Akter Nur, 13, is living proof of that claim, sweltering in a one-room home in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka after her school closed.

Intermittent electricity means she cannot even rely on a fan to cool the cramped dwelling.

“The heat is intolerable,” she told AFP last month.

“Our school is shut, but I can’t study at home.”

Poorest hit hardest

April marked the 11th straight month of record global heat, and the pattern is clear in Bangladesh, said Shumon Sengupta, country director for NGO Save the Children.

“Not only are the temperatures higher, the duration of the high temperatures is much longer,” he told AFP.

“Previously, few areas used to have these heatwaves, now the coverage of the country is much higher,” he added.

Schools across much of Asia are simply not equipped to deal with the growing consequences of climate change.

Bangladesh’s urban schools can be sturdy, but are often overcrowded, with little ventilation, said Sengupta.

In rural areas, corrugated metal roofs can turn classrooms into ovens, and electricity for fans is unreliable.

In Bangladesh and elsewhere, students often walk long distances to and from school, risking heatstroke in the process.

But closing schools comes with serious consequences, “particularly for children from poorer, vulnerable communities who do not have access to resources such as computers, internet and books,” said Salwa Aleryani, UNICEF’s health specialist for East Asia and the Pacific.

Those children “are also less likely to have better conditions at home to protect them during heatwaves”.

They may be left unsupervised by parents who cannot afford to stay home, and school closures put children at higher risk of child labour, child marriage and even trafficking, said Sengupta.

‘Wake up to this’

Climate change also threatens schooling indirectly.

UNICEF research in Myanmar found that crop shortages caused by rising temperatures and unpredictable rain caused families to pull children from school to help with work or because they could no longer afford fees.

Some wealthy countries in the region have taken steps to protect children’s education in the face of a changing climate.

In Japan, fewer than half of all public schools had air conditioning in 2018, but that figure jumped to over 95 percent by 2022 after a series of heatwaves.

Not all impacts can be mitigated, however, even in developed economies.

Australian authorities have repeatedly closed schools because of wildfires, and research has found long-term impacts on learning among students whose communities were worst affected.

Developing countries in the region need help to invest in upgrading infrastructure, said Sengupta, but the only real solution to the crisis lies in tackling the root cause: climate change.

“It’s very important for government and policymakers to really, really wake up on this,” he said.

“The climate crisis is a child crisis. Adults are causing the crisis, but it’s children who are impacted the most.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

A record-breaking heatwave is broiling parts of Asia File
| Photo Credit: NHAC NGUYEN

More than 100 temperature records fell across Vietnam in April, according to official data, as a deadly heatwave scorches South and Southeast Asia.

Extreme heat has blasted Asia from India to the Philippines, triggering heatstroke deaths, school closures and desperate prayers for cooling rain.

Scientists have long warned that human-induced climate change will produce more frequent, longer and intense heatwaves.

Vietnam saw three waves of high temperatures in April, according to data published on May 3 by the National Centre for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting, with the mercury peaking at 44 degrees Celsius in two towns earlier this week.

In all, 102 weather stations saw record highs in April, as northern and central Vietnam bore the brunt of the heatwave, with temperatures on average 2-4 degrees Celsius higher than during the same period last year. Seven stations recorded temperatures above 43 degrees Celsius, all on April 30.

The most dramatic sign of the extreme weather hitting Vietnam came in the southern province of Dong Nai, where hundreds of thousands of fish died in a reservoir.

Images showed locals wading and boating through the 300-hectare Song May reservoir, with the water barely visible beneath a blanket of dead fish.

The mass die-off was blamed on water shortages caused by the heatwave and poor management.

The Vietnamese weather agency is predicting more hot weather in May, with temperatures expected to be 1.5 to 2.5 degrees higher than in previous years.

El Nino effect

While April and May are normally the hottest time of year in Southeast Asia, experts say the El Nino effect is making this year’s heat particularly intense.

Bangladesh and Myanmar saw April heat records broken, heatstroke has killed at least 30 people in Thailand since the start of the year, and high temperatures were partly blamed for a deadly explosion at a Cambodian ammunition dump.

Roman Catholic bishops in the Philippines are urging the faithful to pray for rain and lower temperatures, after the heat forced the government to close tens of thousands of schools.

The Indian megacity of Kolkata has sweltered through punishing heat, peaking at 43 degrees Celsius for the city’s hottest single April day since 1954.

Even mountainous Nepal has been hit, with the government issuing health warnings last week and firefighters battling unusually severe wildfires.