A new report looks into the effects of the COVID-19 on global indicators of early-grade learning proficiency

RESEP researcher, Martin Gustafsson, has been involved in a few studies commissioned by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) in recent years. Most recently, he has modelled the possible effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on global indicators of learning proficiency. The results of this were published in March 2021 in a report titled “Pandemic-related disruptions to schooling and impacts on learning proficiency indicators: A focus on the early grades” (PDF available below). A background Excel file has also been made available. The work draws on earlier work for UIS completed shortly before the pandemic. The report is part of what informs UNESCO’s position on learning losses and the necessary interventions to limit the harm of the pandemic on schooling. As the analysis shows, the evidence currently available already points to the effects of the pandemic on learning having been devastating. But it will also necessary to take stock of new evidence, in particular, country-specific studies into the magnitudes of learning losses, as this emerges, to firm up the picture of the pandemic’s effect. This work is just one of several ways in which RESEP has contributed to investigating the pandemic and the required policy responses. Specifically, RESEP researchers have been involved in producing numerous policy papers for the NIDS-CRAM project, as well as standalone standalone outputs (examples seen here and here) and media contributions (examples seen here, here and here).