At least 22 per cent of primary and 30 per cent of secondary students remained at risk of learning loss for school closure following the Covid-19 pandemic, according to findings of a national survey.
Since March till August 2021, there had been a 'worrying upward trend' in learning-loss risk among both primary and secondary schoolchildren across income groups and both in rural areas and urban slums, the survey reveals.
The trend is most pronounced among secondary male students, some 26 per cent were at risk of learning loss in March, which jumped to 34 per cent in August, according to the survey report.
Power and Participation Research Centre (PPRC) and BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD) jointly conducted the research survey on 'Education Life of Children: Trends in Learning Loss, Digital Inclusion, Mental Health and Child Labour' in rural areas and urban slums.
Executive Chairman of PPRC Dr Hossain Zillur Rahman and BIGD Executive Director Dr Imran Matin presented these findings at a webinar Monday.
While 56 per cent of primary and 65 per cent of secondary students received private tutoring/coaching in March, the rate declined to 48 per cent and 43 per cent in August, according to the survey.
Family support in studying also has decreased significantly since March, particularly for secondary students, most likely due to the resumption of activities and livelihoods pressures, it revealed.
However, the hybrid method of assignments (a mix of interactive and non-interactive) became most widely adopted distance-learning tool in August, it showed.
"Yet only 18 per cent of the primary students and 38 per cent of the secondary students were learning through assignments in August," it says, mentioning that students and teachers were in minimal contact during the survey period, interacting mainly when students came to collect assignments.
The PPRC-BIGD survey indicates that socioeconomic disparities play a role in the learning-loss crisis.
First, the survey finds a direct relationship between a child's learning- loss risk and their mother's education level.
Citing example, it says children whose mothers never went to school were at the highest risk. Second, students with access to coaching/private tutoring prior to the pandemic make up an overwhelming majority of those who can still afford and access it.
About 44 per cent and 36 per cent of rural and urban slum households respectively did not have access to any electronic devices for online learning.
However, over eight per cent of school-going boys were engaged in income-generating activities in both periods, the survey showed, adding the pandemic has exacerbated educational inequality, which was already a major concern in the country.
The pandemic and subsequent school closures have also adversely affected the mental health of children and adolescents.
In August 2021, over 15 per cent of households reported that school- and college-going students had been suffering from mental-health stress since the beginning of the pandemic.
Presenting the survey, Dr Hossain Zillur stressed that human-capital crisis has been as great a concern as the health and economic crisis of COVID-19.
School opening alone without an off-hours remedial programme cannot overcome the accumulated learning loss and danger of a drop-out generation.
Dr Imran Matin observed the importance of funding innovative and scalable solutions to address the twin risks of learning loss and mental health to tackle the educational emergency.
"The long-term cost of not treating this as an emergency can be extremely high, off-tracking years of progress and ambition," he said.
