Working Paper: NBER ID: w30552
Authors: Abhijeet Singh; Mauricio Romero; Karthik Muralidharan
Abstract: We use a panel survey of ~19,000 primary-school-aged children in rural Tamil Nadu to study ‘learning loss’ after COVID-19-induced school closures, and the pace of recovery after schools reopened. Students tested in December 2021 (18 months after school closures) displayed learning deficits of ~0.7σ standard deviations in math and ~0.34σ standard deviations in language compared to identically-aged students in the same villages in 2019. Two-thirds of this deficit was made up within 6 months after school reopening. Further, while learning loss was regressive, the recovery was progressive. A government-run after-school remediation program contributed ~24% of the cohort-level recovery, and likely aided the progressive recovery.
Keywords: COVID-19; learning loss; education recovery; India; Tamil Nadu
JEL Codes: H52; I21; I25; O15
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Learning deficits attributable to COVID-19 school closures (I21) | Learning loss (I21) |
| Learning loss (I21) | Recovery in learning outcomes (I21) |
| Attendance in the ITK program (I21) | Increase in test scores (I24) |
| Attendance in the ITK program (I21) | Contribution to recovery in Tamil (H84) |
| Attendance in the ITK program (I21) | Contribution to recovery in mathematics (C02) |