Page 74 - EW August 2021

International News

months after schools had been shut, says Oscar Sanchez,
a former secretary of education for Bogota. Also the funds
were disbursed to local governments, many of which are
weak or corrupt.
Colombian students were already poorly served relative
to their peers before the pandemic. Since the 2000s, the
government has spent 4 percent of GDP on education, less
than in other poor Latin American countries. As there aren’t
enough government schools, around half of children attend
school in shifts. Teachers are poorly paid; nearly a third of
primary-school teachers don’t have degrees.
Meanwhile, although data is patchy, many children may
not bother to go back to school. A study by Ms Garcia sug-
gests the dropout rate for Bogota this year could be around
8 percent (cf. 3 percent nationally). Some teenagers are
joining gangs. The pandemic and the school closures will
result in a lost generation, worries Ms Segovia. MIT’s Reich: widespread disillusionment

OECD classes.
Will schooling change? teachers to shift to remote learning in a matter of days,
Covid-19 and the closing of school buildings forced
IG SHOCKS HAVE SOMETIMES CHANGED school- cobbling together online teaching platforms out of business
ing for the better. The Second World War midwifed tools. Curriculums were stripped back. Britain, France and
Bthe Butler Act in Britain, which increased years of Ireland, among others, cancelled big exams. For part of
compulsory schooling and abolished fees still charged by 2020, many American schools eschewed grades entirely,
many government schools. After Hurricane Katrina inun- reverting to pass or fail.
dated New Orleans, officials there embarked on sweeping For the vast majority of families in America, online
school reforms. Nine years later, graduation rates have in- teaching has been “something between disappointing and
creased by 9-13 percentage points. disastrous,” says Justin Reich of the Teaching Systems Lab
Covid-19 has disrupted education on a scale never seen at the Boston-based Massachusetts Institute of Technol-
before. By mid-April 2020, more than 90 percent of the ogy (MIT). Data from around the world suggests that, on
world’s learners had been locked out of classrooms. Clo- average, children have learned much less than they would
sures have lasted months, harming children’s learning, usually have done. By March 2021, primary-school pupils in
safety and well-being. Yet as youngsters in rich countries England had fallen nearly three months behind. Last sum-
— the focus of this report — return to their classrooms, re- mer tests of children in Belgium found similar lags. A study
formers hope the shock will lead to changes that will make of pupils in the Netherlands found that during an eight-
schools more efficient, flexible and fair. week period of remote learning in the first half of 2020, the
Critics of modern schools like to argue that they have average pupil learned nothing new at all.
barely changed since the 19th century, when teachers began Children who were already disadvantaged have suffered
abandoning one-room schoolhouses for large institutions most. The Dutch study found that learning loss was more
that divided pupils into cohorts by age. That is an exaggera- than 50 percent greater for children with poorly educated
tion. But traditional models of school have proved remark- parents. By autumn 2020, eight and nine-year-olds in Ohio
ably enduring, says Larry Cuban, an education historian at were behind in English by about a third of a year’s worth of
Stanford University. He says parents value the efficiency learning, compared with children in earlier years. The test
and orderliness of the old-fashioned age-graded school. scores of black students declined by nearly 50 percent more
“People want that and like it, even though they complain than those of white pupils.
about it.” School closures have also underlined the importance
Yet even before the pandemic, there were reasons to of in-person schooling for children’s mental and physical
wonder if the rich world’s schools were running out of puff. health. Youngsters in Italy ate less healthily when their
In tests carried out across rich countries by the OECD, an school buildings were shut. Reports of child abuse have
inter-governmental group, children are, on the whole, scor- fallen largely because teachers — often the first to spot it —
ing no better than they did two decades ago even though have not been seeing their pupils in the flesh.
per-pupil spending has been rising. Many are bored. In
2017, pollsters at Gallup concluded that only one-third (Excerpted and adapted from The Economist and Times
of older high-schoolers in America felt ‘engaged’ by their Higher Education)

74 EDUCATIONWORLD AUGUST 2021