Being the prime driver of learning, even in conjunction with online materials, is a different question and while many parents round the world do successfully school their children at home, this seems unlikely to generalise over the whole population. Parents supplement a child’s maths learning by practising counting or highlighting simple maths problems in everyday life or they illuminate history lessons with trips to important monuments or museums.
But typically, this role is seen as a complement to the input from school. The current global-scale expansion in home schooling might at first thought be seen quite positively, as likely to be effective. The idea is that they continue their education at home, in the hope of not missing out too much.įamilies are central to education and are widely agreed to provide major inputs into a child’s learning, as described by Bjorklund and Salvanes (2011). Perhaps to the disappointment of some, children have not generally been sent home to play. Leaving the close similarity aside, these studies possibly suggest a likely effect no greater than 10% of a standard deviation but definitely above zero. So, rather bizarrely and surely coincidentally, we end up with an estimated loss of around 6% of a standard deviation again. In our case, the loss of perhaps 3-4 hours per week teaching in maths for 12 weeks may be similar in magnitude to the loss of an hour per week for 30 weeks. These differences matter, causing significant differences in test score outcomes: one more hour per week over the school year in the main subjects increases test scores by around 6% of a standard deviation. For example, Lavy shows that total weekly hours of instruction in mathematics, language and science is 55% higher in Denmark than in Austria. Perhaps surprisingly, there are very substantial differences between countries in hours of teaching. They do not find a significant impact on problem-solving skills (an example of ‘fluid intelligence’).Ī different way into this question comes from Lavy (2015), who estimates the impact on learning of differences in instructional time across countries. 60 school days) implies a loss of 6% of a standard deviation, which is non-trivial. As an extremely rough measure of the impact of the current school closures, if we were to simply extrapolate those numbers, twelve weeks less schooling (i.e. The authors show that even just ten days of extra schooling significantly raises scores on tests of the use of knowledge (‘crystallized intelligence’) by 1% of a standard deviation. These differences are conditionally random allowing the authors to estimate a causal effect of schooling on skills. (2015) consider a situation in which young men in Sweden have differing number of days to prepare for important tests. But can we estimate how much the COVID-19 interruption will affect learning? Not very precisely, as we are in a new world but we can use other studies to get an order of magnitude. Even a relatively short time in school does this even a relatively short period of missed school will have consequences for skill growth. While school time can be fun and can raise social skills and social awareness, from an economic point of view the primary point of being in school is that it increases a child’s ability. Going to school is the best public policy tool available to raise skills. Importantly, these interruptions will not just be a short-term issue, but can also have long-term consequences for the affected cohorts and are likely to increase inequality.
Many assessments have simply been cancelled.
Student assessments are also moving online, with a lot of trial and error and uncertainty for everyone. Teaching is moving online, on an untested and unprecedented scale. The severe short-term disruption is felt by many families around the world: home schooling is not only a massive shock to parents’ productivity, but also to children’s social life and learning. The crisis crystallises the dilemma policymakers are facing between closing schools (reducing contact and saving lives) and keeping them open (allowing workers to work and maintaining the economy).
Many countries have (rightly) decided to close schools, colleges and universities. The COVID-19 pandemic is first and foremost a health crisis.