Kids Lost an Average of a Third of a Year’s Learning During Pandemic

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by HealthDay.

Adding to the very long list of hardships exacted by the pandemic, a new review indicates that schoolchildren around the world ended up losing more than a third of a full year’s education due to school closings and disruptions.

The finding follows an analysis of 42 studies conducted in 15 rich or middle-income countries: the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Colombia, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, South Africa, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

The analysis concluded that across the world “schoolchildren’s learning progress slowed down substantially during the pandemic,” noted study lead author Bastian Betthäuser, an assistant professor of sociology with the Centre for Research on Social Inequalities (CRIS) at Sciences Po in Paris.

Among additional findings were:

• Learning deficits arose quite early in the pandemic
• More than two years later, children have not recovered that lost learning
• Children from low-income families were disproportionately affected by school closures
• Learning deficits were larger in poorer than in richer countries.

The review further found that the educational hole left by the pandemic appears to be considerably worse in math, compared with reading.

The findings were published Jan. 30 in the journal Nature Human Behavior.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/schools-and-pandemic-2659303560.html