We must tackle learning loss head-on

One of the areas most severely impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic is our education sector. It is one where the consequences may not be apparent immediately, but the nation would feel its effects in the long run. The closure of educational institutions since early 2020 was unavoidable, yet unendurable when stretched over a long period of time. According to a new study, about 7.86 million primary and secondary students were at risk of learning loss in August-September due to school closure, up from 5.92 million in March.

Although the online classes have tried to make up for the shortfall during the 18 months of shutdown, online teaching was, regrettably, a facility that a good number of the students did not have access to. According to the study, which was jointly conducted by Power and Participation Research Centre (PPRC) and Brac Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD), 40 percent of the households surveyed have no device for remote learning, including online classes.

But it is not only the learning loss that has impacted the students; equally debilitating has been the impact of mental stress they are suffering from. The effect, unfortunately, has been incrementally high, the number of such students rising significantly in August-September as compared to March. In August, over 15 percent of the surveyed households reported that their school- or college-going children had been suffering from mental stress since the beginning of the pandemic. It was 13 percent in March.

The statistics quoted above illustrate the various effects of the pandemic on the education sector.

We believe that alongside the NGOs, the government should also conduct its own survey in this regard—and do so more extensively—so that appropriate measures could be put in place without delay. Opening schools is not enough. One couldn't agree more with the experts who say that this is indeed an educational emergency and must be treated as such. We suggest that the education ministry heed the recommendations made by the two aforementioned NGOs, which include designing well-rounded supplementary remedial programmes to recover learning loss, ensuring psychosocial support for students, expanding the secondary stipend programmes, and enhancing the free distribution of digital devices among poorer students.