COVID-19 and Education

EDUCATION and learning have suffered substantial, and in some ways permanent, setbacks in Pakistan during the pandemic. Schools were intermittently closed due to rising cases and ensuing restrictions, and though private, high fee-paying schools managed to take teaching online so students were not totally left behind, public and low fee-paying schools missed out in a huge way. For these schools, digital learning was and is simply not an option. For millions of students, not only did learning and teaching not take place during the closure period, there was also the serious problem of lost learning that occurs when students disengage from school. When students return to schools after each closure, teachers confront lower levels of retention and have to reassess their expectations of how much a student can catch up given how badly schooling was affected.READ MORE