The COVID Slide in Education (News and Research 225)

New World Bank Program to Support Vulnerable Children, Empower Teachers in North Macedonia: “Skills formation starts early in life and education is ‘path-dependent,’ meaning that access to higher quality education from the very beginning is vital for equipping students with the necessary foundational skills to continue their education and smooth the transition to the labor market,” says Bojana Naceva

Financial Times | Op-Ed: World Bank: four steps to equitable education | Debt relief is needed now to stop the pandemic denying more children a basic education, with girls most at risk |David Malpass |The Covid-19 pandemic is creating unprecedented disruption to education that threatens both current learning and future earnings of millions of children around the world. We urgently need new approaches to support improvements, including debt reductions so that countries can fund the basic schooling required in the years ahead… Countries around the world are stepping up to the challenge, deploying new approaches and innovations… Turkey…developing new…digital content and reaching more children at home…

Is the COVID-19 slide in education real? | Emerging pieces of evidence of an actual COVID-19 learning loss and of its likely implications for the future of the generation currently in school show that it is essential to mitigate the long-term effects of the pandemic as much as possible. | COVID-19 driven school closures have brought significant disruption in education across Europe and Central Asia (ECA). Emerging evidence from some of the region’s highest-income countries is showing that the pandemic is resulting in learning losses and increases in inequality. It is likely that lower-income countries are suffering even more. To reduce and reverse the long-term negative effects, countries need to implement learning recovery programs, protect educational budgets, and prepare for future shocks by building back better…

COVID19 school closures led to learning loss

Pandemic creates a ‘learning crisis’ in parallel to health emergency | The long-term effects of children staying off school are disastrous for poorer countries’ citizens and future…

How is COVID-19 affecting student learning? Initial findings from fall 2020 | The COVID-19 pandemic has introduced uncertainty into major aspects of national and global society, including for schools. For example, there is uncertainty about how school closures last spring impacted student achievement, as well as how the rapid conversion of most instruction to an online platform this academic year will continue to affect achievement. Without data on how the virus impacts student learning, making informed decisions about whether and when to return to in-person instruction remains difficult. Even now, education leaders must grapple with seemingly impossible choices that balance health risks associated with in-person learning against the educational needs of children, which may be better served when kids are in their physical schools…

Learning Loss in Canada due to #COVID19 induced school closures | Ontario: failure rate 16%, twice as large as last year; Quebec: three times the usual failure rate…

COVID-19 and learning loss—disparities grow and students need help | The pandemic has set back learning for all students, but especially for students of color. Evidence-based acceleration approaches can help…

Learning during the COVID-19 pandemic | Although research has found that online classes can be just as effective as in-person classes, there is evidence that suggests disadvantaged students may perform relatively worse. Instructor experience with online teaching and the use of active-learning techniques have a positive effect on student outcomes…

University entry and the class of 2021: who is set to miss out | This report examines how students from different ethnic and lower socio-economic backgrounds entering higher education in 2021 may have their progression affected by the ‘learning loss’ associated with COVID-19…

Learning Poverty in the Time of COVID-19: A Crisis Within a Crisis | The results of simulations estimating the potential impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in learning poverty…

Human capital is central to Tajikistan’s fast and inclusive recovery | Government of Tajikistan-World Bank seminar December 8 | More than 230 participated online, including representatives of CSOs, think tanks, media, donors, and government: First Deputy Minister of Health, Deputy Minister of Education, Deputy Minister of Finance. Press: World Bank: Human Capital is Central to a Fast and Inclusive Economic Recovery in Tajikistan | Human capital said to be central to Tajikistan’s fast and inclusive economic recovery

Returns to Schooling: Estimates for Russia | In Russia, returns to schooling are almost 50% lower than the global average: each additional year of schooling provides a relatively small increase in wages, which declines over time, World Bank experts have found…