Schools in England, it seems, will reopen fully on 8 March at the earliest – a full two months after they closed. The Prime Minister has declined to bring this forward, in spite of new Covid cases falling at a rate of 25 per cent per week. The Scottish and Welsh governments have both said they will partially reopen schools in February. What was looking like being half-a-term’s lost schooling is now looking to be closer to a full term’s worth. That comes on top of over two months of school closures last year – and some interrupted education in the autumn terms as teachers and pupils were forced to self-isolate on many occasions.
What will be the long-term cost of the lost months of education? The OECD has had a go at estimating it. Analysing data from previous instances where education has been disrupted, such as a long teachers’ strike in Wallonia in 1990, to a reorganisation of education in Germany in the 1960s, which saw some children missing out on education, its findings make for depressing reading.
Every week of lost learning will have a severe impact on inequality in decades to come
It concludes that a term’s worth of lost education could go on to cost the US $14 trillion (£10.2trn)
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