Learning outcomes of the COVID-19 pandemic: another perspective.

In a recent study the University of Leuven (De Witte K. & Maldonado J.E. (2020). De effecten van de COVID- 19 crisis en het sluiten van scholen op leerlingprestaties en onderwijsongelijkheid. https://feb.kuleuven.be/research/les/pdf/LES%202020%20-%20181%20effect%20COVID-19%20op%20onderwijs.pdf ) found that the lockdown in spring 2020 created a significant learning delay. Two of the conclusions of this research were very interesting:

• Learning delays are bigger in schools with a bigger number of pupils with fewer learning opportunities.
• In the researched group there was a significant learning delay of approximately a half school year.

The first conclusion is really troubling. Because, even though the Flemish government has invested a lot in equal opportunities, it is still important in which bed you are born to determine your opportunities in life. It’s a cycle that seems very hard to break. But we should not get disappointed by this. Rather we should continue to invest and work on equity in education. And ICT does have a role to play in this. Good equipment (laptop, tablet, …) and the availability of fast internet connections at home for every pupil should be one of the focal points in the following years. Because, whether we like it or not. Education is becoming more and more digital. And the COVID-19 pandemic has only speeded up this process. So if we want to avoid those pupils with fewer opportunities to get even further behind, we must supply them with the resources needed to learn in the 21^st Century.

The second conclusion is somewhat double. On the one hand, it appears to be a bad thing to drop back half a school year. But is it really? What has been tested in this research is curricular knowledge and skills using validated tests in Catholic schools. And they’ve used the same test strategy as in the previous, non-COVID-19 years. And of course, it was to be expected that the results would not be good. There are many reasons for this:

• There was no preparation period for teachers and pupils to switch to online learning. From 1 day to the other they simply had to.
• The learning materials used in schools were not adapted to online learning.
• The Ministry of Education gave the guideline not to work at a 100% pace but stick to a maximum of 50%. So the pupils had sufficient time to work at home. Which maybe was not a bad idea.
• Also, formal evaluations and grades were not allowed during the lockdown period. And even though we would like to have pupils that are all intrinsically motivated. This of course was not the case. And the big motivational factor of grades was not there.

But what this research did not investigate was the growth in extracurricular skills like ICT skills, self-regulation, perseverance. Skills these pupils will maybe need even more than curricular knowledge when they become grown-ups and responsible civilians. I would really like to see whether or not the COVID-19 lockdown in spring affected this. I’m sure that will throw a different, more positive light on the learning outcomes of pupils.