Learning Losses: How does Education recover from a pandemic?
“The teachers shout in front of everyone for my questions, but I’m not understanding what they are teaching.” [1]— Saiba, 21
Saiba lives in Mumbai with her working brother, mother, and her father who is currently unemployed. She says, “During the pandemic I was not able to focus during online classes. I didn’t understand anything. I lost my job, where I was earning a stipend of Rs. 4,500, and found other work where I am earning a stipend of Rs. 2,000. I still manage all my college fees and all my shopping within this money.” [1]
The pandemic has thrown a spanner in an already rickety wheel — our education system. Indian students are spending precious time and resources on sub-par instruction-based education online, while learning gaps get deeper, and opportunities drift further out of reach.
The National Educational Policy (NEP) holds some of the answers, and needs to be tweaked in light of the pandemic. This story attempts to place learners and teachers at the centre and throw light on remedial policy choices that need to be included/implemented urgently.
Remedial learning is already prevalent in India but exists in the form of extra tuitions which all children invariably attend. Tuition classes help children address doubts which school teachers (in a rush to complete syllabus) are unable to do. However, the NEP’s focus on quality and equity needs to be seen through for remedial efforts to be successful.
What could the role of government bodies and private players be to ensure quality and equity in remedial interventions?
Context: Indian Education
We have been alive to gaps in formal learning for too long now. The oft-quoted datapoint from by ASER, 2018 revealed how 5th standard children in schools are unable to read a textbook prescribed for 2nd standard children. [2] But learning losses have become prevalent at every level of education during the pandemic.
“This generation of students now risks losing $17 trillion in lifetime earnings in present value, or about 14 percent of today’s global GDP, as a result of COVID-19 pandemic-related school closures… The new projection reveals that the impact is more severe than previously thought, and far exceeds the $10 trillion estimates released in 2020.”
World Bank [3]
While Indians value education and the potential it holds to unlock opportunities, reports show less than half of Indian graduates are highly employable [4], and only 10% of the labour force have received any form of vocational training [5].
The NEP has been drafted three times in India’s history, in 1968, 1986 and 2020. [6] The NEP 2020 was released to applause on its progressive approach to early years education, foundational learning, and college credit transferability. At the same time, criticisms largely revolved around feasibility in policy implementation. Sensible policy propositions were scoffed off as too lofty; disconnected from reality.
There is an urgent need to put together a feasible NEP ’20 2.0 that takes into account the recovery of learning losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Teachers are not taking classes seriously because they know students will copy and finish the exam.” — Saiba [1]
Opinion: Remedial Learning & Teaching
With additional learning losses due to COVID-19, we need a simple framework for remediation that students, teachers and institutions can rally behind. Course-correct instead of ploughing forward, business as usual.
Learner-centred Interventions:
- Remediation through Hybrid Open School
We cannot let learning gaps caused by the pandemic compound over time. The NEP’s recommendation to expand the scope of the National Institute of Open Schooling [7] could be focussed on addressing learning losses during the COVID-19 lockdowns.
While access to technology remains a challenge, so does access to good teachers in many parts of the country. In the evaluation of a computer-assisted learning program in the early 2000s with government schools in Vadodadara, pairs of students took part in a gamified learning experience for just 2 hours a week. The gains in terms of maths scores showed improvements in both the strongest children and the weakest children who were able to pace themselves and master concepts through the program. [8]
In combination with the “one TV channel per class” intervention introduced in the budget [9], children could apply concepts they learn on TV with digital learning modules that are integrated into their physical classroom environment (much needed for children who live in crowded homes).
- Youth Employability & Continued Education
While the NEP celebrates bagless days at the school level, internship programmes could be mandated for youth during the summer to practise core skills related to employability. Service companies could be incentivised to create these programmes and provide practical experience that complement learning.
The NEP’s recommendation for undergraduate degrees with 3 or 4 year durations, allows for multiple exit options with credits, e.g., a certificate after completing 1 year, a diploma after 2 years of study, or a Bachelor’s degree after a 3-year programme. The 4-year multidisciplinary Bachelor’s programme, is the preferred option with a focus on research in the final year. [10]
This could allow for youth to reintegrate into a degree program by transferring their credits in the chance their education needs to be paused. Gap years taken due to financial constraints could also be used to gain relevant work experience that complement their journey.
- Counselling & Self Assessments
The NEP’s recommendation to introduce career counselling [11] could help children and youth identify learning gaps that are relevant to their employment goals through participative assessments. This could allow children to focus on remedial learning by choice, and help them overcome the stigma associated with it.
“In a traditional classroom, you have homework, lecture, homework, lecture, and then a snapshot exam. And whether you get a 70% or 80%…the class moves on to the next topic.
This is analogous to riding a bicycle — I give you a bicycle, a lecture, and 2 weeks. I come back after 2 weeks and tell you — you have trouble taking left turns, you can’t quite stop, you are an 80% bicyclist.
So then I put a big C stamp on your forehead…and I say — here’s a unicycle.”
Sal Khan on Mastery-based Learning [12]
Teaching Interventions:
- Building Staff Capacity
To bridge significant learning losses compounded by significant inequality, small-group teaching geared toward addressing learning needs at various levels, could aid remediation. Brazil’s “Accelera Brasil” program divided students based on their level in order for them to re-enter age-appropriate learning. After the Ebola crisis which had resulted in a 9 month lockdown, Sierra Leone responded with special teacher training on lesson plan delivery and monitoring, and by hiring retired teachers. [13]
- Improving Teacher Efficacy
In India, Pratham’s summer school programs revealed that public-school teachers can indeed teach weaker children and are willing to put in the effort during the summer. When the program was fully integrated into government schools, teacher training was combined with volunteer training (increased Staff Capacity), and volunteers were offered a stipend to work as teachers’ assistants. [8]
However, in places where just the teacher training was implemented, nothing changed. Completing the curriculum is required by law under the Right to Education Act, and even the teachers who performed well with weak students during summer school, were now focussed entirely on “completing the syllabus” as opposed to teaching. [8]
- Simplified Curriculum
As Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo point out in their book Poor Economics, the current education system has been inherently divisive, between those who can afford elite schooling and those who attend government or low-income private schools.
A simplified curriculum focussed on mastery, reduces the pressure on teachers to complete a weighty curriculum, and allow for more meaningful learning.
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Addressing remedial learning keeping in mind India’s inequities is a gargantuan task, and this story is a humble effort to get a conversation going around the same.
How do you feel about the above ideas and their feasibility? What are some unintended consequences?
What are some feasible ideas that still need to be included?
Who else are key stakeholders?
Sources:
- Primary research with Saiba, 2022 (name changed to protect privacy)
- ASER 2018
- World Bank, 2021: Learning Losses from COVID-19 Could Cost this Generation of Students Close to $17 Trillion in Lifetime Earnings
- News18: Less Than Half of Indian Graduates Skilled; BTech, MBA Most Employable: India Skill Report
- IAMR Occassional Report: Estimating the Skill Gap on a Realistic Basis for 2022 (published 2013)
- The Indian Express: Explained: India’s National Education Policy, 2020
- Centre for Civil Society: Distance covered by National Education Policy 2020
- Poor Economics by Abhijit V. Banerjee, Esther Duflo
- NDTV Education: Budget 2022: ‘One Class, One TV Channel’ Programme Of PM E-VIDYA Will Be Expanded, Says Finance Minister
- NEP: Salient features of Higher Education
- National Education Policy
- TED: Let’s use video to reinvent education — Sal Khan
- McKinsey Report for UNESCO: COVID-19 response — remediation
