Modelling the long-run learning impact of the Covid-19 learning shock: Actions to (more than) mitigate loss

Abstract

This paper uses a calibrated "pedagogical production function" model to estimate the potential long-term losses to children's learning from the temporary shock of Covid-19 related school closures. It then models possible gains from two mitigation strategies. Without mitigation, children could lose more than a full year's worth of learning from a three-month school closure because they will be behind the curriculum when they re-enter school and will fall further behind as time goes on. Remediation when children return to school reduces the long-term learning loss by half, but still leaves children more than half a year behind where they would have been with no shock. Remediation combined with long-term reorientation of curriculum to align with children's learning levels fully mitigates the long-term learning loss due to the shock and surpasses the learning in the counterfactual of no shock by more than a full year's worth of learning. Systems need to begin planning now for remediation programmes, and as they do so they should build programmes and train teachers in ways that can continue to produce benefits beyond the period immediately following reopening.

Keywords: Covid-19; International education; Learning loss; Remediation.

Fig. 1

Modelling the learning process with a trapezoidal pedagogical production function.

Fig. 2

Initial and end of grade student skill distribution.

Fig. 3

Modelling long-term lost learning from Covid-19 shock and mitigation strategies for the current grade 3 cohort: Equivalent years of learning behind/ahead in grade 10 compared to counterfactual of no shock.

Fig. 4

Percent of in-school children learning zero, due to falling behind the level of instruction, at each grade level. Covid-19 learning loss shock occurs in grade 3.

Fig. 5

Percent of grade 10 cohort scoring in each band. Remediation + instruction reorientation produces learning gains far surpassing the counterfactual of no shock. On PISA-like scale; 400 roughly corresponds with the SDG goal of “minimum proficiency”. Note: The PISA scale is standardized to a mean among OECD countries of 500 and standard deviation of 100. The SDG goal of minimum proficiency roughly corresponds to a score of 400. Children scoring 50 or less either never started school or dropped out prior to grade 3 and so are unaffected by the shock and mitigation efforts.