In southern India, a debate is raging over whether the government can ban students from wearing hijabs and burqas in the classroom. Last month the Karnataka state government issued such a ban, spurring legal action and angry protests across the state.

Unable to go to school due to the pandemic, Yoselin spends her days at her mother's work, playing with a cellphone or sleeping on the ground. Rafael looks bored following class behind a computer screen. And Carolina Castillon decided to take her children out of the system to homeschool them instead. This is the reality of education in Panama across social classes amid the pandemic, where children have not set foot in a classroom in 16 months, making the Central American country the one with the largest number of days without face-to-face education in the world, according to a UNICEF report.