A Tale of Learning Loss
Sarah Brigida S. Pineda
The COVID-19 crisis has forced school closures in 188 countries, heavily disrupting the learning process of more than billion of children, youth, and their families. With the pandemic slowing down, governments are now developing the next steps of their strategy to cope with a crisis of an unprecedented scope. In many countries, it implies to plan the safe reopening of schools, and it has taken various forms. Some countries, such as France or Germany, have already welcomed back students, while others, such as Spain or Italy, will maintain the school gates closed until September. Despite these different reopening timelines that reflect national preferences and contexts, there is a broad consensus on the need to analyze and evaluate the consequences of school closures. During this time, distance-learning solutions were implemented to ensure education continuity, and much of the current debate focuses on how much students have learnt during school closures. However, while this potential learning loss may only be temporary, other elements that happen in the absence of traditional schooling, such as the curbing of educational aspirations or the disengagement from the school system, will have a long-term impact on students’ outcomes. This “hysteresis” effect in education requires specific attention, and this paper outlines a dual strategy to bring disengaged students back to school, and mitigate effectively student disengagement in case of future lockdowns. During this time, distance-learning solutions such as online classrooms, TV and radio broadcasts, and computer-assisted learning were implemented to bridge the gap between schools and learners, but the overall impact on learning remains uncertain. Long-term effect of unemployment on a worker’s ability to find a job. It could refer in education to the long-term impact of school closures on students’ outcomes. During the COVID-19 crisis, and in the absence of traditional schooling, we expected that levels of learning would not match what face-to-face teaching would have achieved. For instance because it takes time to adapt and switch to distance-learning, international reports already highlighted the difficulties schools face to integrate the technologies of information and communication into the classrooms.
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The author is Teacher I at San Fernando Elementary School, Division of City
of San Fernando, Pampanga