The global endeavour to ensure that all children obtain a good education has been seriously hampered by the Covid-19 pandemic. Pakistan has been no different. Closures of educational institutions to prevent the spread of Covid-19 have affected an estimated 40 million students, from pre-primary to higher education. School enrolment, completion and learning quality had already been lower in the country than the global mean, particularly amongst girls.

UNICEF Pakistan supported a study on Measuring the Impact of Covid-19 on Education in Pakistan. It primarily focused on learning losses owing to school closures and the measures taken to support learning for school-age children in order to better understand the scope of the problem and build a body of evidence to inform future policy directions. The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) in Pakistan, conducted by Idara-i-Taleem-o-Aagahi (ITA), aims at providing frequent, credible estimates of the education status and learning outcomes of children aged 5–16 years in rural regions of Pakistan. The ASER research in 2021 was designed to examine the impacts of Covid-19 after the unprecedented school closures of 2020 and early 2021.

The survey was carried out in 16 rural districts (four each in Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the Punjab, and Sindh). A total of 9,392 homes with a total of 25,448 children aged 3–16 years, including 21,589 children aged 5–16 years, were surveyed (43 percent girls, 57 percent boys). Learning assessments for language (English and Urdu/ Sindhi/ Pashto) and arithmetic competencies were completed for children aged 5–16 years using ASER instruments matched to sustainable development goal 4.1.1.a.

In addition, 457 government schools and 198 private schools were surveyed to determine their capacity and readiness to follow government standards for restarting schools safely.

Quetta, Bolan, Gwadar and Awaran in Balochistan; Peshawar, Chitral, South Waziristan and Torghar in KP; Muzaffargarh, Sheikhupura, Bhakkar and Jhelum in the Punjab; and Karachi-Malir, Sukkur, Tharparkar and Dadu in Sindh are among the districts surveyed. Covid-19 was found to have altered the society and worsened social and economic disparities. Governments around the world banned face-to-face teaching in schools as a part of measures to halt its spread, affecting 95 percent of the world’s student population—the greatest disruption to education in history.

According to UNESCO data from April 2020, Covid-19 caused school closures for 1.6 billion students worldwide, with 188 countries closing schools. As a result of Covid-19, Pakistan was one of the first countries in the world to implement widespread school closures. Schools in Sindh were closed on February 27, 2020; the rest of the country followed suit on March 14. Classes 9–12 were reopened on September 15, 2020, followed by Classes 6–8 on September 23, and nursery to Class 5 on September 30, 2020, respectively. Following the third wave of the pandemic (from April to May 2021), all learners, whether in private or public schools, began attending classes on alternating days. Even before the pandemic, Pakistan’s education system was in crisis, with 32 percent of children aged 5 to 16 years out of school and dismal learning outcomes for those who were enrolled.

The closure of educational institutions as a result of Covid-19 has had a direct impact on 40 million school-aged children, ranging from pre-primary to secondary school, amplifying the dangers and vulnerabilities of an already weak educational system. Concerns have been raised about the impact of the suspension of face-to-face education on student learning. There is a scarcity of data on this topic, and proof of learning loss under lockdown has taken a long time to surface. School systems, unlike other sectors such as business or health, do not often provide data at regular intervals. Online solutions for instruction, much less assessment and accountability, have proven difficult for schools and instructors to implement. Previous crises have demonstrated that the impacts of school closures can last for years; four years after the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan, an entire cohort of learners aged 3–15 had worse academic results, despite extensive remediation efforts.

While school closures have been beneficial in aiding social distancing measures, they may have major implications for education and learning. While past research from other nations has looked at the effects of summer recess on learning, as well as disruptions caused by events like extreme weather or teacher strikes, Covid-19 offers a unique issue. Parents are less able to provide learning support as a result of its concomitant economic repercussions, the pandemic’s health and mortality risks, as well as the toll of social isolation, imposing additional psychological burden. The prevalence of family violence is expected to climb, putting already vulnerable students in danger.

When schools disappear, there is no new learning, and what has already been learnt is likely to be forgotten. Due to the emergence of Covid-19 in 2020, a large-scale survey could not be undertaken, so it was agreed, in cooperation with the UNICEF, to conduct a restricted survey to analyse the pandemic’s effects on learning.

The ASER 2021 is the world’s largest citizen-led household-based learning survey. It was led by Idara-i-Taleem-o-Aagahi in collaboration with other stakeholders. ASER launched a research project to analyse the impact of Covid-19 on Pakistani education after a series of unusual school closures in 2020 and early 2021. The survey sample included 12 rural districts (4 in the Punjab, 4 in Sindh and 4 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa). Language and arithmetic skills were assessed in 7,176 families, 18,838 children aged 3-16 years, and 16,058 children aged 5-16 years (41 percent females and 59 percent boys) from 345 government and 184 private schools.

There is a marked difference between the ASER findings for 2019 and 2021. Enrollment has decreased marginally in the 6 to 16 age group but dramatically in the 3 to 5 age groups. Covid-19 caused financial difficulty for many families, resulting in an increase in dropouts. A larger number of girls dropped out than boys.

The key findings include:

1. The Punjab has the highest levels of learning, followed by the KP and Sindh. Balochistan has the lowest levels of learning. Balochistan has the highest learning losses, followed by the Punjab, Sindh and the KP. The learning losses were largest in low-performing and high-performing districts on the Alif Ailaan rating from 2017.

2. Across nearly all abilities and classes, girls lost more learning than boys during the Covid-19 school closures. This helped prevent or even reverse an upward trend in learning outcomes for girls, who had been outperforming boys in some circumstances.

3. During the period when schools were closed, children who attended government schools showed a higher decline in learning than those who attended private schools. These decreases are more pronounced in the lower classes (Classes 1 and 3).

4. Learning outcomes improve with maternal education and household affluence.

5. During school closures, almost 60 percent of youngsters currently enrolled in school spend less than an hour every day on their academics.

6. While 40 percent of children who had cell phones at home used them for studying, younger children had less access to them than older children. If school closures occur again, 55 percent of children do not feel confident in their ability to study on their own.

7. Approximately 32 percent of children said they watched educational broadcasts on PTV’s Tele-School programmes. While Tele-School has a significant reach, its impact is unknown. The study also discovered that 54.5 percent of households with television access had not used PTV Tele-School as a learning aid for their children. This highlights the disparities that exist between individuals and social groups not just in terms of access to technology but also in terms of their ability to benefit from it, with low “digital literacy” and/ or “digital motivation.”

8. Through the BISP, Ehsaas, Punjab Social Protection Authority (PSPA), and Akhuwat initiatives, social protection outreach to households grew from 10.4 percent to 11.4 percent in the 16 districts from 2019 to 2021. Given the expansion of targeted social protection instruments for education over the Covid-19 period, from early childhood to primary, secondary and post-secondary, this could be an important linkage to offset learning and access deprivation for those most in need (ensuring at least 50 percent are girls) through a lifelong approach.

Primary school students are experiencing a learning crisis as a result of school closures. Learning losses are more common in younger children who have not yet established a solid basis for learning. Pakistan’s learning crisis is embedded in a deeper crisis of fairness, with girls, children from low-income families, and children from certain geographic regions suffering bigger learning deficits.

Therefore, it is recommended that: policies and programmes must be developed to support all children’s learning, with a focus on young children and girls. The factors that contribute to educational inequity must be addressed, such as through social protection programmes for girls’ education and targeted low-tech and no-tech support for children in the poorest homes. To jointly promote children’s education, a new social compact for learning is needed to develop linkages between families, communities and schools, where Education Technology (EdTech) should be investigated for its potential to create innovative learning solutions.

The writer is a researcher and writer. He has an LLB, an MPhil in cyber crimes and is a PhD (computer science) scholar