Department of Education: Concern as learning lost during pandemic

The closures of schools and the disruptions to teaching and learning have resulted in the reversal of gains made in the last 20 years, the Department of Basic Education said on Thursday, August 19.

The department said it was now concerned at levels of learning reduction that the sector had incurred since the Covid-19 pandemic began last year.

It said the lost school days led to foregone learning which could possibly impact learners, as they could end up obtaining lower overall educational outcomes and ultimately lower lifetime earnings as a result.

Director for research at the Department of Basic Education Dr Stephen Taylor said: “We have now begun to measure Covid-19 related learning losses in South Africa by comparing how much children learned in 2020, with how much they learned in a normal school year before that. These measures indicate that between 50% and 75% of a normal year’s worth of learning was lost during 2020.”

Taylor said the delay in the start of the academic year in 2021 and the extended absence of learners from school would have a long-lasting negative impact on society in general.

“Although we only have this information for certain grades and learning areas (such as reading), it is likely that learners across grades and subjects would have been similarly affected,” he said.

He said the sector lost a week in the extended winter school holiday, resulting in the reduction of the number of school days as initially scheduled in the amended school calendar.

“It is also likely that these learning losses would have been greater in poorer communities, where children have less access to effective remote learning opportunities and home support.

“The impact on early learning for children attending early childhood development (ECD) centres is also likely to have been significant since attendance rates at ECD centres have also dropped considerably since the pandemic.”

Taylor said there was evidence from the national income dynamics study – coronavirus rapid mobile survey that more school-aged children were not attending school than usual.

“It is not yet clear whether this is temporary non-attendance or will become permanent.

“In the long run, the learning losses in primary school may lead to an increase in dropout when these children reach grades 10, 11, and 12. It is at this point when learners with weak learning foundations begin to drop out in larger numbers. This creates an urgent need to recover learning that has been lost.”

Taylor said assuming that the schooling system was unable to successfully catch up to pre-pandemic trajectories, it was predicted that grade 12 outcomes could be expected to be lower over time.

He said the education department had to address the crisis of lost learning, by preventing further disruptions to school time and introducing measures to catch up on lost lessons.

Taylor said children were at low risk to Covid-19, and the department’s efforts to introduce comprehensive safety protocols in schools and to vaccinate teachers had now created the possibility to keep schools open and return to everyday attendance.

“The department urges all stakeholders in the sector to support efforts aimed at ensuring that education continues without any further delays or disruptions.”

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