E X ECUTIV E SUMM A RY THE STATE OF THE GLOBAL EDUCATION CRISIS: A PATH TO REC OVERY A J O I N T U N E S C O , U N I C E F, A N D W O R L D B A N K R E P O R T Published in 2021 by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank, UNESCO and UNICEF under CC-BY-SA 3.0 IGO license. The present license applies exclusively to the texts. © 2021, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank, UNESCO and UNICEF This Executive Summary is drawn from the publication: State of the Global Education Crisis: A Path to Recovery, published in 2021 by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank, UNESCO and UNICEF The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this work do not necessarily reflect the views of The World Bank, its Board of Executive Directors, or the governments they represent, or those of UNESCO or UNICEF. 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Requests for permission to reproduce UNICEF photographs should be addressed to UNICEF, Division of Communication, 3 United Nations Plaza, New York 10017, USA (email: nyhqdoc.permit@unicef.org). All queries on rights and licenses, including subsidiary rights, should be addressed to World Bank Publications, The World Bank Group, 1818 H Street NW, Washington, DC 20433, USA; fax: 202-522-2625; e-mail: pubrights@worldbank.org. Cover photos (top to bottom, left to right): © UNICEF/UN0517129/Panjwani; © UNICEF/UN0360754/; © UNICEF/UN0506301/Ijazah; © UNICEF/UNI366076/Bos; © UNICEF/UN0419388/Dejongh; © UNICEF/UNI304636/Ma © UNICEF/UN0527672/SUJAN EXECUTIVE SUMMARY T he global disruption to education caused by the school, with younger and more marginalized children often COVID-19 pandemic is without parallel, and its missing out the most. Students in São Paulo (Brazil) learned effects on learning have been severe. The crisis only 28 percent of what they would have in face-to-face brought education systems across the world to classes and the risk of dropout increased more than a halt, with school closures affecting more than threefold. In rural Karnataka (India), the share of grade three 1.6 billion learners. While nearly every country students in government schools able to perform simple in the world offered remote learning opportunities for subtraction fell from 24 percent in 2018 to only 16 percent in students, the quality and reach of such initiatives varied 2020. The global learning crisis has grown by even more greatly, and they were at best partial substitutes for in-person than previously feared: this generation of students now risks learning. Now, 21 months later, schools remain closed for losing $17 trillion in lifetime earnings in present value as a millions of children and youth, and millions more are at risk result of school closures, or the equivalent of 14 percent of of never returning to education. Growing evidence on the today’s global GDP, far more than the $10 trillion estimated in impacts of school closures on children’s learning depicts a 2020. In low- and middle-income countries, the share of harrowing reality. Learning losses have been large and children living in Learning Poverty—already over 50 percent inequitable: recent learning assessments show that children before the pandemic—will rise sharply, potentially up to 70 in many countries have missed out on most or all of the percent, given the long school closures and the varying academic learning they would ordinarily have acquired in quality and effectiveness of remote learning. 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY • THE STATE OF THE GLOBAL EDUCATION CRISIS: A PATH TO RECOVERY The crisis exacerbated inequality in education. Globally, full Reopening schools should be countries’ highest priority. and partial school closures lasted an average of 224 days. The cost of keeping schools closed is steep and threatens But in low- and middle-income countries, school closures to hamper a generation of children and youth while often lasted longer than in high-income countries, and the widening pre-pandemic disparities. Reopening schools response was typically less effective. Teachers in many low- and keeping them open should therefore be the top and middle-income countries received limited professional priority for countries, as growing evidence indicates development support to transition to remote learning, that with adequate measures, health risks to children leaving them unprepared to engage with learners and and education staff can be minimized. Reopening is the caregivers. At home, households’ ability to respond to the single best measure countries can take to begin reversing shock varied by income level. Children from disadvantaged learning losses. households were less likely to benefit from remote learning than their peers, often due to a lack of electricity, connectivity, devices, and caregiver support. The youngest students and students with disabilities were largely left out of countries’ policy responses, with remote learning rarely designed in a way that met their developmental needs. Reopening schools should be countries’ highest Girls faced compounding barriers to learning amidst school priority. The cost of keeping schools closed is steep closures, as social norms, limited digital skills, and lack of and threatens to hamper a generation of children access to devices constrained their ability to keep learning. and youth while widening pre-pandemic disparities. Progress made for children and youth in other domains has stagnated or reversed. Schools ordinarily provide critical To tackle the learning crisis, countries must first address services that extend beyond learning and offer safe spaces the learning data crisis, by assessing students’ learning for protection. During school closures, children’s health and levels. While substantial losses in reading and math have safety was jeopardized, with domestic violence and child now been documented in several countries and show labor increasing. More than 370 million children globally variations across countries, grades, subjects and students missed out on school meals during school closures, losing characteristics, evidence on learning loss generally what is for some children the only reliable source of food and remains scarce. It is critical for policymakers, school daily nutrition. The mental health crisis among young people administrators, and teachers to have access to learning has reached unprecedented levels. Advances in gender data that reflect their context, and for learning data to equality are threatened, with school closures placing an be disaggregated by various sub-groups of students, so estimated 10 million more girls at risk of early marriage in the that they can target instruction and accelerate students’ next decade and at increased risk of dropping out of school. learning recovery. The COVID-19 crisis forced the global education community To prevent learning losses from accumulating once to learn some critical lessons, but also highlighted that children are back in school, countries should adopt transformation and innovation are possible. Despite the learning recovery programs consisting of evidence- shortcomings of remote learning initiatives, there were based strategies. Evidence from past disruptions to bright spots and innovations. Remote and hybrid education, education, such as the 2005 Pakistan earthquake, show which became a necessity when the pandemic hit, has that without remedial measures, learning losses may grow the potential to transform the future of learning if systems even after children return to school, if the curriculum are strengthened and technology is better leveraged to and teaching do not adjust to meet students’ learning complement skilled and well-supported teachers. needs. Learning recovery programs can prevent this and make up the losses with a contextually appropriate mix of Building on the close collaboration of UNESCO, UNICEF, and proven techniques for promoting foundational learning: the World Bank under the Mission: Recovering Education, consolidating the curriculum, extending instructional this report presents new evidence on the severity of the time, and making learning more efficient through learning losses incurred during school closures and charts targeted instruction, structured pedagogy, small-group a path out of the global education crisis, towards more tutoring, and self-guided learning programs. In addition effective, equitable, and resilient education systems. to recovering lost learning, such measures can improve 2 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY • THE STATE OF THE GLOBAL EDUCATION CRISIS: A PATH TO RECOVERY learning outcomes in the long run, by improving systems’ Building back better requires countries to measure how responsiveness to students’ learning needs. But countries effective their policy responses are at mitigating learning must act now to make that happen, taking advantage loss and to analyze their impact on equity—and then to of the opportunity to improve their systems before the use what they learn to keep improving. Improving systems learning losses become permanent. to generate timely and reliable data is critical to evaluate policy responses and generate lessons learned for the next Beyond addressing learning losses, addressing children's disruption to education. The implementation gap between socioeomotional losses is essential. School closures not policy and improved student learning requires more only disrupted education, but also affected the delivery of research to understand what works and how to scale what essential services, including school feeding, protection and works to the system level. psychosocial support, impacting the overall wellbeing and mental health of children. Reopening schools and supporting Countries have an opportunity to accelerate learning and them to provide comprehensive services promoting wellbeing make schools more efficient, equitable, and resilient by and psychosocial support is a priority. This will happen only if building on investments made and lessons learned during teachers are adequately equipped and trained to support the the crisis. Now is the time to shift from crisis to recovery— holistic needs of children. All teachers should be supported and beyond recovery, to resilient and transformative and prepared for remedial education, mental health and education systems that truly deliver learning and wellbeing psychosocial support, and remote learning. for all children and youth. © UNICE F/UN049 5427 /POUGET 3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY • THE STATE OF THE GLOBAL EDUCATION CRISIS: A PATH TO RECOVERY