Learning Recovery after COVID-19 (News and Research 280)

Learning Recovery after COVID-19 in Europe and Central Asia: Policy and Practice| This brief highlights the key aspects of the World Bank’s ECA learning recovery plan that should be prioritized given the current situation in the region. The plan consists of three stages: (i) coping with the closing of schools and compensatory programs for preventing learning losses; (ii) ensuring continuity in reopened schools by providing foundational skills to reduce learning loss and to improve learning among disadvantaged students; and (iii) improving and accelerating learning by making schools more resilient and equitable through educational innovations and evaluation.

Tackling Early School Leaving in Romania | Two successive projects, which were implemented in cooperation with the World Bank, developed an early warning methodology for early school leaving and piloted it in 10 Romanian counties. The central administration and schools were supported to develop their capacity for prevention, intervention, and compensation for early school leaving. The projects were launched following successive country-specific recommendations on improving the inclusiveness of the Romanian education system. They contribute to the national reform agenda (notably the National Reform Programme and the strategic framework for education). The early warning mechanism has been embedded in the Romanian Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP), which will extend its implementation at a national level and offers to further strengthen the capacity of schools to apply the methodology developed with the European Commission support. The first project focused on developing a methodology for tackling early school leaving at the national, regional, and local (school) levels. The methodology included an early warning mechanism and extensive guidance addressed to schools. The second project is ongoing and builds upon the results of the first by piloting the early warning mechanism in 10 counties and offering hands-on support to more than 150 schools. It builds the capacity of the central and local level to support the roll-out of the mechanism at a national level, through the planned RRP interventions. The projects resulted in a comprehensive methodology addressing the prevention, intervention, and compensation phases of early school leaving. This was accompanied by hands-on support to participating schools and written guidance addressed to central land local stakeholders. The methodology will be rolled out nationally with RRP support.

Mapping the Global Learning Crisis | Despite record enrollments in school worldwide, learning is limited

Sharp increase in inequality in education in times of the COVID-19-pandemic | The COVID-19-pandemic forced many countries to close schools abruptly in the spring of 2020. These school closures and the subsequent period of distance learning has led to concerns about increasing inequality in education, as children from lower-educated and poorer families have less access to (additional) resources at home. This study analyzes differences in declines in learning gains in primary education in the Netherlands for reading, spelling and math, using rich data on standardized test scores and register data on student and parental background for almost 300,000 unique students. The results show large inequalities in the learning loss based on parental education and parental income, on top of already existing inequalities. The results call for a national focus on interventions specifically targeting vulnerable students.

Interactive radio instruction – a legacy of COVID-19 for marginalized adolescent girls of Baluchistan | The mean score comparison of pre-test–post-test across four curriculum subjects indicates the greatest gains in numeracy and civic education. Results also highlight the significance of the pedagogical capacity of IRI developers and the quality of supplementary educational kits paired with IRI during this intervention.

Learning Loss due to Online Learning during Pandemic Era (Case Study of Private High School in Yogyakarta) | Online learning during the Covid-19 pandemic era has been conducted for 20 months. Many problems occur, especially learning loss which is relatively severe. This paper aims to reveal learning loss in 35 schools with 255 teachers through surveys with questionnaires, face-to-face reports via video conference, as well as interviews with several probing and special notes. Learning loss problems can be divided into three categories. First, the failure to achieve learning targets. This learning loss is caused by the refusal to learn by students, not implementing learning, and the lack of facilities. Second, the stagnation of learning achievement caused by learning disruption, limitations of the on-line learning process, and curriculum policies. Third, the decline in learning achievement, which is caused by the unpreparedness of students to take online learning, limitations of distance learning, limited support, and limitations of teachers in using media.

The pandemic disrupted an entire generation’s education. The AP wants to help local newsrooms examine the long-term impacts | A full-time team at the AP will work with local newsrooms for the next two years to deepen their education coverage.

Other news

‘Greek PISA’ to launch in May | Greece’s first-ever testing program aimed at evaluating whether schools are giving the country’s youngsters the education and skills they need on the way forward will be taking place in May. Designed along similar lines to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s triannual Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), which evaluates 15-year-old students, the Greek version of PISA will take place annually and will test pupils in the last year of elementary and middle school. May’s test is being carried out at the pilot level on a sample of 12,000 pupils from 600 schools, sitting exams in Modern Greek and mathematics.

The World Bank recognizes the Foundation’s schools in Romania as examples of success | Its model has been published in the ‘Handbook for preventing the separation of children from their families’, which is co-funded by the European Social Fund. The ‘Handbook for preventing the separation of children from their families’, edited by the World Bank and the European Social Fund, includes among the success stories the model developed by the Real Madrid Foundation’s socio-sports schools in Bucharest. These are run in partnership with the FDP-Protagonists in Education Foundation, thanks to the support of the UEFA Foundation for Children.

National High-Stakes Testing, Gender, and School Stress in Europe: A Difference-in-Differences Analysis | Does high-stakes testing affect school-related stress among students and are there gender differences? Students’ results on high-stakes tests can have long-term consequences for their future educational trajectories and life chances. For girls, who tend to have higher educational aspirations and tend to gain more from higher education, the stakes involved may be even higher. The use of high-stakes testing has increased across Europe, but little is known about their consequences for stress or wellbeing. The study finds that high-stakes testing increases the risk of moving from low to high levels of self-reported school stress by 4 percentage points, or by 12 per cent relative to baseline values. This effect is somewhat larger for girls, though not significantly so. The results are robust to a range of sensitivity analyses.

Announcement

How Education Can Help Mitigate the Consequences of the COVID-19 Pandemic | Annual joint Summer School on role of education in social and economic development- HSE University and World Bank | June 14 – 21, 2022 | Application Deadline: May 1, 2022 | Participation is free | Moscow, HSE Institute of Education | Language: English | Accommodation: organized and paid for by the participants themselves | Lecture topics: The problems of inequality and access to education under COVID-19; Learning Loss: New tools and approaches; The economics of education in the COVID-19 era; The role of initiative and agency to survive in the storm; Entrepreneurship training – in response to the crisis: approaches and solutions | Read more and register