How Much Learning May Be Lost In The Long-run From COVID-19 And How Can Mitigation Strategies Help?

Recent evidence suggests that the long-term learning losses from COVID-19 school closures could be big—far surpassing the short-term learning losses experienced during the school closures themselves. A study of the impact of the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan found that while children missed three months of school, four years after the earthquake, they were the learning equivalent of 1.5 years behind where they would have been with no earthquake. The likeliest explanation is that because the students were already behind the curriculum when they reentered school, they continued to fall further behind even after they returned.

How much learning might be lost from COVID-19 school closures in the long run if nothing is done, especially if losses accumulate as the Pakistan study suggests they could.…………………………