Heat and education

As climate hazards intensify, conventional coping measures alone can no longer ensure safe, conducive learning environments. Schools now need innovative, climate-resilient solutions that ensure continuity of education during extreme summer temperatures.

When classrooms become overheated or outdoor recess gets canceled, students struggle to focus and learn. Excessive heat impairs cognitive performance, putting students who need extra academic support during the summer at an even greater disadvantage.

It’s important to recognize that many schools are underprepared to carry out their days in extreme heat, without the physical infrastructure or planning to keep students and educators comfortable and safe in the classroom or outside on school grounds.

Heat Smart Schools is a guidance framework by CDRI to help schools adapt to rising extreme heat risks. With over two billion children projected to face frequent heatwaves by 2050, the document emphasizes that heat threatens health, learning, and equity.

Climate change is making southern Africa hotter. While much attention has focused on climate impacts like droughts, floods and food insecurity, another crisis is unfolding quietly inside classrooms.

This policy brief summarises the results and discusses the policy implications of an assessment the number of schools and students at risk of rising temperatures in 2050 across 13 OECD countries and economies.

In many countries across the Northern Hemisphere, school reopens in early autumn — a time that is supposed to offer a welcome break from the intense summer heat.

This study outlines how rising extreme heat poses growing risks to pupils and staff in schools across the United Kingdom, highlighting limited preparedness and the absence of robust heat action plans.