7.8m students suffer learning loss

School closures have led to alarming inequities in learning opportunities for children in Bangladesh despite significant efforts by the government to expand remote learning.

In spite of substantial efforts for remote learning, low connectivity and access to digital devices have severely hampered efforts to roll out remote learning. Consequently, students also learnt significantly less compared to pre-pandemic levels.

According to a recently conducted national survey, more than seven million students across the country are now at risk of learning loss due to the Covid pandemic-induced school closure.

Meanwhile, about 24 per cent of students are no longer connected with the schools because of the closure of educational institutions in wake of Covid-19 outbreak, founds the survey.

“The number of drop out students now stand at 7.8 million which includes 3.96 million from the primary level while 3.90 million from the secondary level,” said Power and Participation Research Centre executive chairman Dr Hossain Zillur Rahman while unveiling a national survey at a webinar on Monday.

The survey is a part of a larger, multi-phase study titled “Covid-19 Livelihoods and Recovery Panel Survey” which was jointly conducted by PPRC and BRAC Institute of Governance and Development.

The survey revealed that during the school closure period, 24 per cent of students did not have any connection with the school and only four per cent of the total students regularly joined the online classes while one per cent joined the classes irregularly.

“Around 48 per cent of students were connected with the school through mobile phones and 53 per cent of students used to bring homeworks from the teacher and submit them to check while six per cent of students remained connected through other ways.”

The survey also catagotically said that around 40 per cent of the total households have no device for the students to attend the online classes as part of remote learning.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, on an average 61 per cent of households have at least one device that can be used for study purposes where 57 per cent in the rural areas and 64 per cent in urban slums.

Fearing a massive dropout of the students at the school level, Dr Zillur urged the authorities concerned to initiate a national dialogue in order to combat any such dropout possibilities.

The research developed an educational module as part of the larger survey — first in March 2021 and later in August — to examine the changes in the educational life of children.

The phonic survey in rural areas and urban slums show that at least 22 per cent of primary and 30 per cent of secondary students are currently at risk of learning loss due to the prolonged shutdown of educational institutions.

From March to August 2021, there is a worrying upward trend in learning loss risk among both primary and secondary schools’ children across income groups and both in rural areas and urban slums.

The trend is most pronounced among secondary male students, 26 per cent were at risk of learning loss in March, which jumped to 34 per cent in August, according to the survey.

The PPRC-BIGD survey has also indicated that the socio-economic disparities play a role in the learning loss crisis.

According to the findings, 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 have been suffering from mental health stress since the beginning of the pandemic.