And governments must develop a plan for distance learning, remedial education, and to get students back into schools when they reopen.
44 years ago today, 10,000 black school children risked their lives to protest the poor quality of education in Soweto, South Africa.
Schools will have to be prepared to make up for the learning loss, which includes the time students have been out of school, and factoring in the impact several years down the line.
And as households lose income from the combination of job losses and falling remittances - which, in Nigeria, are the size of the federal government budget, parents will be less able to afford to send their children to school.
And governments must develop a plan for distance learning, remedial education, and to get students back into schools when they reopen.
