Article
What Have We Learnt? Findings from a survey of ministries of education on national responses to COVID-19
(4 November 2020) At the height of nationwide lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 1.5 billion children were affected by school closures, causing an unprecedented global learning crisis. Even prior to the pandemic, however, children’s learning was in crisis with half of 10-year-olds in middle- and low-income countries unable to understand a simple written sentence and more than a quarter billion children out of school. The pandemic has only sharpened these inequities, hitting schoolchildren in poorer countries particularly hard. National governments around the world have been quick to implement remote learning, new health protocols and reopening plans, but again these policies have varied widely based on each country’s wealth.