--- title: Saving Education During Ebola description: Children from Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia are still out of school. Here's what's being done canonical: https://time.com/3637570/5-million-kids-arent-in-school-because-of-ebola/ author: Alexandra Sifferlin article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-12-17T17:23:23.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:00:10.866Z article:section: Health og:title: 5 Million Kids Aren't In School Because of Ebola og:description: The virus's other toll og:url: https://time.com/3637570/5-million-kids-arent-in-school-because-of-ebola/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta7bc88512c48c312/69876f6ce53aba3afe4d69b2/school-ebola-closed.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3680 og:image:height: 2070 og:image:alt: Schools closed in Sierra Leone after Ebola outbreak og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 5 Million Kids Aren't In School Because of Ebola twitter:description: The virus's other toll twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta7bc88512c48c312/69876f6ce53aba3afe4d69b2/school-ebola-closed.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # 5 Million Kids Aren't in School Because of Ebola > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: September 2026. ## TIME Health Matters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Health Matters is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. The latest health news and expert advice on living well. Health Matters makes the fast-moving world of health more useful, surprising and human, from the latest science and medical breakthroughs to practical ideas for living better. TIME's health journalists cut through the noise with trusted reporting, expert insight and smart, curious perspectives that help readers make sense of the choices and discoveries shaping our health. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's weekday health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free weekday newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-health-2026q3/newsletters?i=e3a893ab-8559-4d66-b416-f8dae5d8a010&cr=time-nl-health-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Meet The CDC Doctors Fighting Ebola [Watch (HLS stream): Meet The CDC Doctors Fighting Ebola](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/G194AmTC.m3u8) (2:32)  _Published 2014-08-13. Meet The CDC Doctors Fighting Ebola_ by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Dec 17, 2014 5:23 PM UTC  A classroom of a school stands abandoned on Aug. 25, 2014 in Kenema, Sierra Leone. Schools closed and villages quarantined after dozens of its congregation died with Ebola symptoms. A classroom of a school stands abandoned on Aug. 25, 2014 in Kenema, Sierra Leone. Schools closed and villages quarantined after dozens of its congregation died with Ebola symptoms. Mohammed Elshamy—Anadolu Agency/Getty Images by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Dec 17, 2014 5:23 PM UTC Public schools in Guinea have been closed since March. Schools in Sierra Leone and Liberia never opened after the summer holiday. All told, the children’s rights and emergency relief group [UNICEF](http://www.unicef.org/) estimates that 5 million children ages 3 to 17 are out of school due to Ebola. “This Ebola crisis has been predominantly seen as a health crisis but its implications go way beyond health,” says Sayo Aoki, an education specialist for UNICEF working in the affected countries. “It’s time we start looking at it from other perspectives, and education is part of that.” Some schools were closed out of fear the disease could spread in large gatherings while others had no access to water, making handwashing impossible. But the longer a child stays out of school, the [less likely it is he or she will return](http://time.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/gcb%5Fstopebola%5F11%5F11.pdf)—which is why UNICEF is working closely with the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Health to come up with protocols necessary to implement in order to let children back into the classrooms. The draft—which calls for measures like Ebola screenings, hygiene requirements and a plan in the event a suspected case—is currently being reviewed by experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the U.S. and the World Health Organization. **MORE:**[ TIME’s Person of the Year: Ebola Fighters](time.com/poy) In the meantime, UNICEF and partner NGOs have trained out-of-work teachers to act as “social mobilizers,” going door to door to spread messages about how to identify Ebola and prevent its spread. UNICEF and partners are also using the radio programs to offer long-distance learning while kids are kept at home. “We are trying to make \[the radio shows\] simple and more interesting so children will get some learning,” says Aoki. “If they listen to it at a certain time of the day during the week, it gives them a routine they’ve lost from not going to school. It brings them a sense of normalcy, some sort of stability and hope.” Stability has been largely destroyed for many children living in Ebola-affected countries. Many have seen family members, friends and neighbors get infected, and many have [become orphans](http://time.com/3453660/ebola-orphans/) as well. Ebola has also changed social mores. “Nobody shakes hands in public,” says Aoki. “It has put a lot of stress on children. There’s no cuddling, no hugging, no kissing. The simple joys of life have been taken away.” Even before Ebola, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia were economically troubled countries still emerging from conflict and civil war. Guinea and Liberia were in the process of increasing their school attendance numbers—Guinea was at 58% and Liberia was at 34%—and experts worry that Ebola has set progress back. School closures, including private schools, are also a bad economic indicator. Jeff Trudeau, the director of The [American International School of Monrovia](http://www.aismonrovia.com/) (AISM) [told TIME in August](http://time.com/3161227/ebolas-untold-tragedy-foreign-families-are-fleeing/) that he lost more than half his expected students for the 2014 school year, many of whom were children of foreign families who moved to the region for jobs in Liberia’s burgeoning business sector. That school’s earliest possible start date is January and for others, there appear to be “moving” deadlines for reopening. Guinea is aiming for January while Liberia and Sierra Leone are hoping for March. But all the countries will have to patiently wait until their caseloads are under control, since a premature opening may only add fuel to the fire. ## Transcript This Ebola outbreak is unprecedented. This is definitely a marathon and not a sprint. The bugs have evolved. The outbreak has gotten bigger. We are only as strong as the weakest link, and we have learned from Ebola that West Africa was a very weak link. [ MUSIC ] There's small clinics, these are like one room places where sick people might go in their house with maybe an auxiliary nurse as some one who has a little bit of medical training, but defiantly not the same standards that we would have here in the US. We're facing 3 main threats. The first is the threat of new organisms. It was coming and spreading in different places. The second is drug- resistant bacteria, and the third are intentionally created organisms. What we do in an outbreak response is continuously see how can we make it better. The exercises we've gone through both, re- evaluating our own protocols but also understanding what the public and governmental responses are has really helped us understand. How to take care of these patients in the larger context of our healthcare systems. And, those who are in the building, I would urge you to come down to either the ops team room, or the, When designing a unit that is designed to accept patients with serious communicable diseases, like Ebola, there are ways to design a unit so that it's function. Functional. Any hospital that can isolate a patient in a single patient room with a bathroom and can follow our infection control recommendations is capable of safely caring for a patient with Ebola. And we've tried to encourage every single hospital in the country to have an antibiotic stewardship program to improve antibiotic prescribing practices. There is a concern about fatigue as we go on that, the CDC other groups have sort of ramping up now to try to surge resources into the area. What we're also realizing is, we need to be able to maintain that surge for many months to keep the pressure on to completely control the outbreak. Time will tell in the next few weeks if we can start to see those numbers going in the right direction. Fewer new cases each day or each week. The single most important thing to understand about protecting Americans from Ebola is that can best be done by stopping it at the source in Africa. Its normal to be scared of something as deadly as Ebola and for the general public I really hope we can never let our fear undermine our compassion. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3637570/5-million-kids-arent-in-school-because-of-ebola/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3637570/5-million-kids-arent-in-school-because-of-ebola/"},"headline":"5 Million Kids Aren't in School Because of Ebola","datePublished":"2014-12-17T17:23:23.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T08:00:10.866Z","description":"Children from Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia are still out of school. 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