Parallel session
What are the long-term impacts on learning and how can education systems respond?

The COVID-19 pandemic has had dramatic effects on lives and education systems including widespread school closures. The school closures come on top of a pre-existing learning crisis and threatens to further widen learning gaps, leaving even more children behind. What long term effects on children’s learning outcomes can we expect from these closures? And how can education systems “reboot” to most effectively respond to these and make use of the opportunity to build back better?
 
The panel will present findings from three studies on the COVID-19 crisis and its impact on education as part of the RISE (Research on Improving Systems of Education) Programme—a large-scale multi-country research endeavour focused on understanding how countries can overcome the learning crisis and deliver improved learning for all. These include simulations of potential long term learning loss, empirical measures of learning loss, and a study of efforts to remediate and recover from the pandemic. The findings emphasize the need for immediate responses to remediate losses and highlight the potential that recovery from this crisis presents to embark on long-term systems improvements for learning.

Collaborators

Session convened by the RISE Programme

Michelle KaffenbergerMichelle Kaffenberger | Chair & Presenter

Michelle Kaffenberger is a Research Fellow with the RISE Programme at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford, where she researches education systems and learning outcomes. Previously she was Senior Research Advisor with the World Bank, and served as advisor or consultant to the United Nations, Asian Development Bank, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and a variety of private sector and nonprofit organisations. Prior to that she was research manager and lead analyst at InterMedia, an international development research organisation.

Dozie OkoyeDozie Okoye | Presenter

Dozie Okoye is an Associate Professor at Dalhousie University, a visiting fellow at CSEA, and a member of the Research on Improving Systems of Education Nigeria Team. Dozie’s research interests include: Economic Growth and Development, History and Economic Development in Africa, Macroeconomics, Education, Human Capital and Technology Adoption.

Isabel MacDonald Isabel Macdonald  | Presenter

Isabel Macdonald is a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley with the Lab for Inclusive FinTech. Her research focuses on how technology and behavioral economics can improve outcomes in education and financial wellbeing. She holds a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University.