A World Bank survey has revealed that 45% of school-aged household members (aged 5-18 years) have not engaged in any education or learning activities since mid-March.
The survey that revealed this is part of a World Bank global effort to support countries in their efforts to monitor the impacts of COVID-19.
The fact that 45% of school-aged household members have not engaged in leaning activities since mid-March emphasizes the importance of helping children catch-up for the time they missed at school.
Thus, it is imperative that schools resume as soon as possible in order to ensure that students in general, especially those not currently learning from home catch-up quickly.
This is also key considering that there are certain barriers to learning from home. Nairametrics, while discussing the recently concluded Nobel Week Dialogue pointed to some of these concerns.
The winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2018, Frances Arnold, noted that students can learn at home, but not all the time. She cited that science, for example, is all about collaboration and learning from experience and experiments, and that’s pretty hard to do from home.
Also, while commenting on the future of education, Prof Asha Kanwar, CEO of the intergovernmental Commonwealth of Learning, said parents could play a key role in schooling, while academic and computer scientist, Daphne Koller pointed out that not all parents had the time or skills for that task, which could further deepen inequities in education.
These points appear to confirm that quick resumption of students is key to the development of students going forward.