The COVID-19 Causing Educational Gap

written by 20126 Choi Si Young

The Current Situation 

The outbreak of COVID-19 has made the education gap a bigger problem. 774.2 million students worldwide had their schools closed during the pandemic which resulted in a long term for virtual learning.

What Is the Problem?

In this situation, some might think that remote learning fits, and is convenient or better for health issues.

However, the fact is that it has been hurting many students’ learning, emotional health and social development. 

Educational Professor Tamar Kushnir said “Virtual learning is not as effective as the environment of in-person education. The best way for children to learn is in the real world, learning from play and learning from social interaction. Sitting in front of a screen is not a way to make children learn and keep their attention and children have lost a lot of ground in their learning.” 

Currently, social development has had more impact than language development. 

“Socialization requires peer interaction, and that is what children are missing. Maybe their language gains will be the same, but social development may be falling behind for a while,” Kushnir added. As the pandemic continues on, children tend to have difficulties in social relationships and interaction. The reason is because learning to read and write is possible with parents' help, while social development is not.

There are quite a lot more problems. Students had a hard time attending classes sitting behind screens with poor connections and environments. The lack of libraries was also an issue. Students have lost the places to study and get sources from.

In many places, the quality of online classes were much lower that the physical classes due to the network issues that occurred even during the mid-examinations. Students with siblings even had a hard time finding a place or a usable device to attend the classes. 

These unsolved difficulties during the online classes are widening the educational gap.

Closing the Learning Gap shared the survey results of nearly 1,000 U.S  K-12 educators about the educational challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the survey,  Over 97% of educators reported loss of learning by their students over the past year when compared with children in previous years. A majority (57%) of educators estimated their students are behind by more than three months in their social-emotional learning progress. When asked what the biggest obstacle to return to a “normal” education environment was, nearly half (47%) of educators cited a wider gap between academically struggling and high-performing students.

Actions Made to Close the Gap

Boardman educators are identifying the students who need extra help in order to solve the problem. They are checking where their students are at, and using data to determine if they are on grade or left behind. They are also adding summer school for the students to attend.

In some cases like the schools in Ohio, are trying extended learning which corresponds to summer school or tutoring. They are making a theme based summer enrichment camp with art, STEM, athletics, and entrepreneurship with a literacy focus.

Virginia Tech and the YMCA have been coming together to help kids learn successfully through virtual learning. They have launched a free online homework program since fall that tutors students from ages 5-18. It has been using Zoom to pair the students in need with some volunteers.

The EdTech companies are recently launching various types of  innovative products and are pushing for a blend of online and offline learning in higher education. They are letting the students have a favourable learning experience and helping to close the gaps of education.

Educators are coming up with a wealth of ideas to best support students’ progress going forward. 

According to a survey of the educators, 53% of them see a need for a narrower focus on grade-level standards to ensure students learn the most important concepts for their grade level, with many also recommending less focus on standardized test preparation.

34% would like more paraprofessionals to provide targeted support to struggling students. They say that helping the struggling students improve would close the gap.

30% requested access to more social-emotional learning resources to help students process the events of the past year. 

Many people, organizations and places are working hard to overcome the education gap caused by the pandemic. 

Kushnir said. “This isn’t going to be forever. I would tell a child the same thing … We can find good things in the meantime and eventually this will pass.”