A Different Approach to What the Pandemic Has Taught on Education

A report on the improvement in distance education due to the pandemic has been prepared jointly by UNESCO, UNICEF and the World Bank. The next generation of students risk losing $17 trillion in present value, or about 14 percent of today's global GDP. It has created school closures and economic shocks related to COVID-19. This new projection far exceeds the $10 trillion estimate published in 2020 and reveals that the impact of the pandemic is more severe than previously thought. The pandemic and school closures have not only endangered children's health and safety, with the rise of domestic violence and child labor , but also significantly impacted student learning. The report shows that in low- and middle-income countries, the share of children living in Learning Poverty, which was already over 50 percent before the Pandemic, could reach 70 percent, largely due to prolonged school closures and the relative ineffectiveness of distance education . If action is not taken, learning losses can continue to accumulate after children return to school and will be in a position to jeopardize their future learning. Results from global simulations of severe learning losses and worsening inequalities in education, the impact of school closures on learning, are now supported by country estimates of actual learning losses. Evidence from Brazil, rural Pakistan, rural India, South Africa and Mexico, among others, indicates significant losses in mathematics and reading. In some low- and middle-income countries, on average, learning losses are roughly proportional to the duration of the closures – that is, each month that schools are closed will result in a full month of learning losses.