Peer-reviewed article
Potential effects of COVID-19 school closures on foundational skills and Country responses for mitigating learning loss
Carolina Alban Conto, Spogmai Akseer, Thomas Dreesen, Akito Kamei, Suguru Mizunoya et al. ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study examined how school closures and dropout affect children's reading and numeracy skills using household survey data from thirteen low- and lower-middle-income countries. The researchers found that missing school or dropping out is linked to lower achievement in foundational skills. During the COVID-19 pandemic, countries' remote learning responses were often insufficient to keep all children engaged, prevent dropout, or reduce the learning losses that the study predicted, with particular challenges for marginalized children and those in pre-primary grades.
Key points
- Missing or dropping out of school is associated with lower reading and numeracy outcomes
- Remote learning responses during COVID-19 were often inadequate to support all children
- Marginalized children experienced particular vulnerability to learning loss during pandemic closures
- Pre-primary level children faced specific challenges with remote learning approaches
- Study used household survey data from thirteen low- and lower-middle-income countries
Limitations
The document does not specify which thirteen countries were studied, making it difficult to assess regional patterns or generalizability. The abstract does not provide detailed quantitative findings, effect sizes, or specific examples of country-level interventions evaluated.
Abstract
This article investigates to what extent disrupted schooling and dropout affects children's acquisition of foundational skills prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using household survey data from thirteen low- and lower-middle-income countries, we find that missing or dropping out of school is associated with lower reading and numeracy outcomes. Drawing on global surveys conducted during the pandemic, we find that countries' remote learning responses are often inadequate to keep all children learning, avoid dropout, and mitigate the learning losses our findings predict, particularly for marginalized children and those at the pre-primary level.