Children have a right to be involved in decisions about their future education, health and wellbeing

Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, children across the world have experienced significant changes to their lives. Save the Children (2020, p. 4) report that an estimated 99 per cent of children worldwide (equating to more than 2.3 billion children) live in one of the 186 countries where some form of restrictions have been implemented due to Covid-19. Additionally, research by Unicef indicates that school closures have affected almost 90 per cent of students worldwide, with nearly 370 million children who rely on school meals not receiving these (as at July 2020) (Unicef, 2020). In January 2021, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child reported that the number of children living in poverty has increased by 142 million in the past year (UN, 2021, p. 2). In the UN’s summary of the meeting, it was noted that the closure of schools had had a devastating impact on children, with the UN Secretary General referring to the situation as a 'generational catastrophe' (UN, 2021).