The pandemic has yielded more than a learning crisis

A plethora of recent articles have called for reopening schools and addressing the learning crisis, particularly in developing countries. These recommendations share several common elements—most notably, the need to prioritize earlygrade learning or foundational skills. Economist Karthik Muralidharan writes, “A large body of evidence highlights the importance of early years in the formation of human capital and our school opening priorities should reflect this.” Mary Goretti Nakabugo, writing on behalf of the RISE Community of Practice, reinforces this, while also emphasizing the “urgent need to measure children’s learning levels.” It is hard to dispute the technical correctness of these directives. Research previously found that there exists a ‘100-year gap’ in the education attainment of developed versus developing countries. School closures over the past 18 months have likely widened this gap. However, from an implementation point of view, we must put these recommendations in perspective.

We are faced with more than a ‘learning’ crisis. A recent survey commissioned by the Lemann Foundation in Brazil finds that school closures have had adverse effects on children’s sociability, psychology, and health.

Children have gained weight, become sadder, lonelier, more afraid, and at least a third have lost interest in school. Other research points to a web of socioeconomic and emotional turmoil generated by the pandemic: job losses, economic instability, fear of the virus, domestic violence and social isolation.

Even in normal times, schools represent much more than their pedagogic function, especially in high-deprivation contexts. A teacher from a government school in Delhi once told me how she thought of herself as a “social worker”. Given her students’ socioeconomic backgrounds, her role was to “provide them five hours of positive energy.” This aspect of her job will only become more important post the pandemic.

Much of the recent commentary also seems to take teachers for granted, expecting them to seamlessly transition to new pedagogies and practices as schools reopen. It’s problematic to ignore, however, that teachers have inhabited the same universe these past 18 months while also having to acquire new skills to perform their dayto-day jobs. Even in the US, Elizabeth Steiner and Ashley Woo find that teachers reported more frequent job-related stress and symptoms of depression than the general adult population. The primary stress points included modes of instruction and health. Research from Chile similarly concludes that teachers’ perception of their quality of life has reduced since the pandemic, owing to work overload, loneliness and covid-related fears.

Now, from an administrative perspective, imagine how proposals to make foundational learning a priority might play out. My recent research on project management units in education departments in Indian states offers some insight.

Well-meaning foundations and consulting firms will get involved and reinforce the topdown structure of bureaucracies, create new assessment systems, impose new remediation requirements and implement management information systems and accountability mechanisms to ensure that frontline officials comply. In bureaucratic systems steeped in the language of compliance, even well-intentioned formative assessments end up taking the form of high-stakes exams among teachers, students and officials.

It is critical to be mindful of the norms and cultures of existing systems before trying to superimpose new requirements on them. Top-down, controldriven systems are rarely successful in inducing performance, as economist Dan Honig’s work on mission-driven bureaucracy finds. Instead, Honig finds motivation-driven reforms to be more effective: empowering agents and sparking internal motivation through supportive practices like giving employees autonomy.

While the word ‘re-imagine’ has often been used for education, the first step is to transform governance. Covid may have sparked some bright spots. The pandemic has invigorated what Hannon et al call “local learning ecosystems”, with stronger partnerships among local stakeholders (students, teachers and others). As Emiliana Vegas and Rebecca Winthrop write, “Schools at the center of a community ecosystem of learning and support is an idea whose time has come.” Appropriately, Pratham Education Foundation’s Rukmini Banerji and the Centre for Policy Research’s Yamini Aiyar highlight the role of local innovations and call for decentralization—greater financial resources, expenditure discretion and autonomy to make decisions at the school level.

Our learning crisis is undeniably real. But the language we use to implement reforms is crucial. If reopening schools is framed just in terms of a learning crisis, we are likely to ignore the massive social and emotional crises students and teachers face. Poorly designed governance structures focusing on thin metrics will only exacerbate this.

As schools reopen, the immediate focus should be to ensure access, both to get students back in class and prevent drop-outs, as the pandemic’s effects continue to play out. School systems must prioritize addressing the social, emotional and health-related challenges of covid. Simultaneously, we must recalibrate structures of governance by empowering frontline agents and local stakeholders. This will foster the culture needed to facilitate a solution to the learning crisis..