Not only did they drive many parents into despair, but research also shows significant learning loss due to school closures and online schooling. However, as always, the consequences hit the poorest regions and people hardest.
Failing Exams in Rural Ghana
When I visited Ghana last March, I saw the impacts of COVID-19 on education in a small rural community in West Africa. Mercy, an orphan girl whose schooling I had been supporting through her elementary and middle school years, was eagerly waiting for her state exam results that would determine whether she could continue to high school. She had always been among the best in her class, so my surprise and her disappointment were great when we picked up her results and they were much worse than expected. It was heartbreaking to console Mercy. Not only did she panic about missing out on further education, she also feared being beaten up by her uncle for the bad results. Fortunately, we were able to evade the latter by going to meet him together.
In this remote village, schools do not have electricity, not to mention computers. Mercy lives in a mud hut and studies by candlelight. When schools closed, there was no remote learning and pupils stayed at home idle for almost half a year. It's no wonder that the results dropped. In addition, teenage pregnancies increased, and a number of pupils did not return to take their exams but instead migrated south to find work. Thus, school closures had a profoundly negative impact on many young destinies.
Shift to Online Learning
At the peak of the pandemic, schools serving some 1.6 billion students around the world were closed. In Ontario, schools were closed for 26 weeks between March 2020 and June 2021. However, in more affluent countries, school closures did not mean that pupils would be idle. Instead they moved to online learning. Teachers were busy organizing either synchronous or asynchronous activities, and many parents took up informal teaching assistant roles. In this context, the results also show some learning loss when compared to pre-pandemic times. And of course, there were other negative consequences from increased screen time and losing out on the social aspects of schooling. However, the pandemic experience has also had some silver linings. It has led to new educational interventions, increased digital skills, and new ways of tutoring to help students catch up. There was also a move away from testing and assessment during this volatile time (unlike in Ghana).
Exacerbated Inequalities
The pandemic exacerbated inequalities. The digital and educational divide between poor and more affluent societies has become all the more evident. No support mechanisms were there to help Mercy and her classmates to keep on track with their learning. The pandemic has also highlighted inequalities within affluent countries like Canada. Low-income students, students with special education needs, and English-language learners have fallen disproportionately further behind while being also more severely affected by other hardships related to the pandemic (sickness, unemployment, less access to technology, etc.). Special emphasis needs to be devoted to support their recovery.
And what happened to Mercy? Despite the disappointing results, she received a place in a secondary school nearby and is determined to pursue her dream of becoming a nurse. Thankfully all the hardships in her life have made her resilient. I'll try to help her to fulfill her dream. One thing the pandemic clearly revealed is that there is a shortage of nurses all over the world; so it is a profession worth pursuing.
