AT LEAST 242 million children in 85 countries had their schooling interrupted last year because of heatwaves, cyclones, flooding and other forms of extreme weather, the United Nations children's fund warns in a report published today.

Unicef said it equated to one in seven school-going children across the world being kept out of class at some point in 2024 as a result of climate hazards.

Some countries had hundreds of schools destroyed by weather, with low-income nations in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa hit especially hard, the report says.

In Europe, torrential rains and floods in Italy near the end of the year disrupted school for more than 900,000 children. 

Thousands had classes halted after catastrophic flooding in Spain.

While southern Europe dealt with deadly floods and Asia and Africa had flooding and cyclones, heatwaves were “the predominant climate hazard shuttering schools last year,” Unicef said, as the Earth recorded its hottest-ever year.

More than 118 million children had their schooling interrupted in April alone, Unicef said, as large parts of the Middle East and Asia, from Gaza in the west to the Philippines in the south-east, experienced a prolonged heatwave with temperatures soaring above 40°C.

Unicef executive director Catherine Russell said: “Children are more vulnerable to the impacts of weather-related crises, including stronger and more frequent heatwaves, storms, droughts and flooding.

“Children cannot concentrate in classrooms that offer no respite from sweltering heat and they cannot get to school if the path is flooded or if schools are washed away.”

Around 74 per cent of the pupils affected in 2024 were in middle- and low-income countries, showing how climatic extremes continue to have a devastating impact in the poorest countries. 

Flooding ruined more than 400 schools in Pakistan in April. Afghanistan suffered heatwaves followed by severe flooding that destroyed over 110 schools in May, Unicef said.

Months of drought in southern Africa exacerbated by the el Nino weather phenomenon threatened the schooling and futures of millions of children.

The poor French territory of Mayotte, which lies in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Africa, was left in ruins by Cyclone Chido in December and hit again by Tropical Storm Dikeledi this month, leaving children across the islands out of school for six weeks.

Cyclone Chido also destroyed more than 330 schools and three regional education departments in Mozambique on the African mainland.

Unicef said the world’s schools and education systems were “largely ill equipped” to deal with the effects of extreme weather.