LEARNING LOSS WHILE OUT OF SCHOOL —IS IT NOW TIME TO WORRY?

LEARNING LOSS WHILE OUT OF SCHOOL —IS IT NOW TIME TO WORRY? Tracy Vaillancourt, Scott Davies and Janice Aurini | April 28, 2021 Tracy Vaillancourt is Professor and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair, University of Ottawa & Chair of the Royal Society of Canada’s Working Group on Children and Schools Scott Davies is Professor and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair, University of Toronto Janice Aurini is Associa. [...] So what do the data say about learning loss in the context of the pandemic? Unfortunately, Canada lacks high-quality and large-scale data that directly measure any impacts of these types of closures on student achievement. [...] In their best-case scenario, students would fare as they did in years before the pandemic, typically gaining 3.5 months of learning per school year, with a gap of about 6.5 months between students in the lower and upper quartiles. [...] The learning loss estimates by Davies and Aurini do not factor in things like pandemic-related family stress and trauma that have led to increases in mental health problems in children and youth. [...] Education is directly linked to greater productivity, adaptability, innovation, and health, the very characteristics of resilience that are integral for a country to be globally competitive.