The COVID-19 pandemic has had devastating effects on our well-being that linger years after the virus first spread among humans. We already know that mental health declined significantly during the pandemic, especially among young people. The pandemic also led to the increased prevalence of sleep problems and eating disorders.
Now, a new systematic review published last month in the Nature Human Behavior finds that the learning progress of school-aged children across the globe slowed during the pandemic and has yet to catch up.
This finding is not surprising, considering the pandemic led to one of the largest disruptions in learning in human history. Most schools closed for several months at minimum; many closed for more than an entire school year. Even when teaching resumed, many schools adopted a hybrid model (which included in-person and remote learning) that was not as effective as in-person teaching. Quarantine rules led many students and teachers to miss large periods of class time. In addition, extra-curricular activities were limited, which meant that young people had fewer opportunities to engage with other kids.
This latest review includes 42 studies that measured learning progress during the pandemic in students across the globe. On average, across all of the studies, students lost about 35 percent of a school year’s worth of learning early in the pandemic.
The evidence shows learning deficits persist across all age groups—from kindergarteners to high school students—and are larger for math than reading.
The data also demonstrate that the pandemic “increased educational inequality between children from different socioeconomic backgrounds.” Essentially, students from lower-income families lost more learning compared to those from higher-income families. This increase in inequality occurred for students of all ages in both math and reading. While this finding is devastating, it makes sense that parents with higher socioeconomic status were better equipped to help their children with school—or even teach the material themselves—while schools were closed or in-person learning was erratic. In addition, much of the distance-learning schools relied on during the pandemic required technology at home, such as computers and a stable Internet connection—resources that weren’t available to some lower-income families.
While the data are not complete, the researchers found that learning deficits were more pronounced in middle-income countries compared to higher-income countries. (They found no studies from low-income countries.)
There are no clear solutions to this problem, but the study authors do make some suggestions for interventions that may help. These include offering or requiring learning opportunities during summer holidays, extending the number of days that students are in school, offering tutoring programs, and providing free access to learning apps or online learning platforms. More research is needed to determine if any of these interventions are helpful in making up for lost learning.
The take-home message: The COVID-19 pandemic led to a significant learning loss for students of all ages from across the globe. The evidence demonstrates that it is urgent for researchers to test and communities to implement interventions that can help make up for lost learning.
