I examine how school closures affect the learning of today’s Grade 3 students (in low- and middle-income countries) through grade 10 if nothing is done to mitigate the consequences. (Grade three was chosen to be illustrative; we’ll likely run similar analysis for the other grade cohorts in forthcoming work.) The model suggests that if learning in Grade 3 is reduced by one-third, roughly the amount of time many children are likely to be out of school, learning levels in Grade 10 would be a full year lower than they would have been with no shock (Figure 1). This is because children have fallen behind the level of instruction while out of school and continue falling further behind as the curriculum progresses once they return.

How might short-term, or “emergency,” remediation programs affect these long-term learning outcomes? I introduce this to the model by assuming that when these children return in Grade 4, part of the Grade 3 curriculum is covered before moving on to Grade 4 topics. Starting in Grade 5, instruction reverts to the previously established (pre-pandemic) curriculum and instructional levels. This remediation effort in the year children return to school reduces the long-term learning loss by half, but still leaves children more than half a year behind where they would have been in Grade 10 with no shock.

A final scenario illustrates the opportunity education systems have to “build back better.” The steps that education systems will need to take to conduct remedial education—including implementing assessments to identify children’s learning levels, training and empowering teachers to adapt their instruction and pedagogical practices to students’ levels and needs, and prioritizing children’s attainment of essential skills—are well-proven strategies for improving learning outside of a crisis context. For example, the “Teaching at the Right Level” (TaRL) approach, pioneered by Pratham in India, has shown that tailoring instruction to children’s learning levels can produce massive learning gains. The approach is now expanding and scaling in Africa through TaRL Africa. Other programs such as Tusome in Kenya have shown large results from working with governments to reorient curriculum and instructional support to teachers to prioritize foundational skills and ensure all children are learning.

One way systems could “build back better” is to use the skills gained implementing remediation to adapt instruction to children’s learning levels on an ongoing basis. For example, teachers trained to assess children’s learning when they return from school closures could continue to assess children’s learning at regular intervals throughout the year and adapt instruction to meet children where they are.

I model such a scenario, in which “emergency” remediation is combined with ongoing adaptation of instruction to children’s learning levels. This scenario both fully mitigates the long-term learning losses from the school closures and provides children with a full year’s more learning than if there had been no shock (see Figure 1).

The COVID-19 school closures could have many long-term consequences for today’s children. A recent projection of lost wages suggests this generation could lose $10 trillion in earnings over their lifetime due to their time out of school. But long-term lost learning doesn’t have to be one of the consequences. Education systems can start planning now for remediation programs when schools reopen. As they do, they should build programs and train teachers in ways that can continue to produce benefits beyond the reopening period to come back from the crisis stronger than before.

This blog was originally posted on the Brookings website and was re-posted with permission.