Publication: Response to COVID-19 in Europe and Central Asia: Policy and Practice Recommendations
Loading...
Files in English
558 downloads
Published
2020-05-08
ISSN
Date
2020-05-12
Editor(s)
Abstract
The Europe and Central Asia (ECA) Education Team's vision is for education systems to empower all to reach their full potential. In line with this vision, the purpose of this guidance note is to provide recommendations and policy advice for decision-makers on potential education responses to the COVID-19 crisis. The note includes measures for mitigating learning losses and preparedness for school re-openings and/or a second wave based on the following scenarios: (i) schools remain closed until the end of June and reopen in July allowing for the possibility of summer school; and (ii) schools remain closed through the summer, reopening for the next school year but with protracted disruptions.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Sava, Alina; Shmis, Tigran; Nunes Teixeira, Janssen Edelweiss; Patrinos, Harry Anthony. 2020. Response to COVID-19 in Europe and Central Asia: Policy and Practice Recommendations. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/33725 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Learning Recovery after COVID-19 in Europe and Central Asia(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-05-28)The vision of the Europe and Central Asia (ECA) Education Team is for education systems to empower all people to reach their full potential. In line with this vision, the purpose of this guidance note is to provide decision-makers with some recommendations and policy advice on effective ways to respond to the education losses engendered by the COVID-19 crisis. These recommendations include specific measures for mitigating learning losses and preparing for school reopening. The note also discusses the opportunity to design and implement structural reforms to make education systems more resilient and, in the process, improve students’ educational performance. Recommendations are also given for longer-term actions with the potential to transform education by strengthening learning and improving learning equity in the future.Publication Decentralized Decision-making in Schools : The Theory and Evidence on School-based Management(World Bank, 2009)The school-based management (SBM) has become a very popular movement over the last decade. The World Bank's work on school-based management emerged from a need to better define the concept, review the evidence, support impact assessments in various countries, and provide feedback to project teams. The authors took detailed stock of the existing literature on school-based management and then identified several cases that the Bank was supporting in various countries. The authors present as well general guidance on how to evaluate school-based management programs. The Bank continues to support and oversee a number of impact evaluations of school-based management programs in an array of countries. Despite the clear commitment of governments and international agencies to the education sector, efficient, and equitable access remains elusive for many populations - especially for girls, indigenous peoples, and other poor and marginalized groups. Many international initiatives focus on these access issues with great commitment, but even where the vast majority of children do have access to education facilities, the quality of that education often is very poor. This fact increasingly is apparent in the scores from international learning assessments on which most students from developing countries do not excel. Evidence has shown that merely increasing resource allocation without also introducing institutional reforms in the education sector will not increase equity or improve the quality of education. One way to decentralize decision-making power in education is known popularly as SBM. There are other names for this concept, but they all refer to the decentralization of authority from the central government to the school level. SBM emphasizes the individual school (represented by any combination of principals, teachers, parents, students, and other members of the school community) as the main decision-making authority, and holds that this shift in the formulating of decisions will lead to improvement in the delivery of education.Publication RIGHT+ Framework for Physical Learning Environments (PLEs)(World Bank, Washington DC, 2025-03-14)In the context of the global learning crisis, climate change, and increasing disasters, Physical Learning Environments (PLEs) can play an important role in increasing education outcomes globally, especially in the most vulnerable populations. For this framework, PLEs comprise the physical elements of the learning environment at three different levels: spaces; the school as a whole; and the network of education facilities. In low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), PLEs face common challenges that result in the exclusion of vulnerable populations, hinder students’ learning outcomes, and threaten students’ and teachers’ health and well-being. The main issues relate to insufficient supply of places in schools, poor physical conditions, and lack of safety. Furthermore, the design of the PLEs is often conceived to support only traditional pedagogical practices, limiting the effectiveness of the teaching-learning process. As a crosscutting challenge, the management of the education infrastructure is critical. The intended use of this framework is not to be a one-fit-all solution that must be fully implemented using a top-bottom approach. Instead, its objective is to provide education practitioners with an organizational scheme to assess the PLE’s situation and propose solutions for rehabilitating existing PLEs or constructing new ones. The proposed six strategies, characteristics, and attributes are intended to be used to interpret PLE needs and guide the appropriate design of interventions. To maximize impact, it emphasizes taking advantage of the entry points and building on existing demands, expanding them to maximize impact, creating synergies among factors, and prioritizing interventions based on context and needs. The flexible framework is a reference for local solutions, allowing communities to diagnose and design their proposals with local solutions. To successfully implement the RIGHT+ framework, task teams must use a comprehensive approach to PLEs that prioritizes the learning process, expands solutions to address the broader context, scales interventions to benefit all education infrastructure, and relies on data-driven decision-making, all complemented with capacity-building processes. By adopting this approach, task teams can promote PLEs that genuinely support learning and development for all, with the potential to impact the education sector.Publication Evaluation of Educational Loss in Europe and Central Asia(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-08-09)To what extent has the learning progress of school-aged children slowed during the COVID-19 pandemic? A pre-registered analysis of the first international assessment to be published since the pandemic is conducted to estimate the impact of COVID-19 on student reading. The effect of closures on achievement is modeled by predicting the deviation of the most recent results from a linear trend in reading achievement using data from all rounds using data from 28 countries in Europe and Central Asia. Reading scores declined by an average of 20 percent of a standard deviation, equivalent to just less than a year of schooling. Losses are significantly larger for students in schools that faced relatively longer closures. While there are no significant differences by sex, it is shown that lower-achieving students experienced much larger losses.Publication An Analysis of COVID-19 Student Learning Loss(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-05)COVID-19 caused significant disruption to the global education system. Early reviews of the first wave of lockdowns and school closures suggested significant learning loss in a few countries. A more recent and thorough analysis of recorded learning loss evidence documented since the beginning of the school closures between March 2020 and March 2022 finds even more evidence of learning loss. Most studies observed increases in inequality where certain demographics of students experienced more significant learning losses than others. But there are also outliers, countries that managed to limit the amount of loss. This review aims to consolidate all the available evidence and documents the empirical findings. Thirty-six robust studies were identified, the majority of which find learning losses on average amounting to 0.17 of a standard deviation, equivalent to roughly a one-half year’s worth of learning. These findings confirm that learning loss is real and significant, even compared to the first year of the pandemic. Further work is needed to increase the quantity of studies produced, and to ascertain the reasons for learning loss and in a few cases mitigation of loss.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication World Development Report 2011(World Bank, 2011)The 2011 World development report looks across disciplines and experiences drawn from around the world to offer some ideas and practical recommendations on how to move beyond conflict and fragility and secure development. The key messages are important for all countries-low, middle, and high income-as well as for regional and global institutions: first, institutional legitimacy is the key to stability. When state institutions do not adequately protect citizens, guard against corruption, or provide access to justice; when markets do not provide job opportunities; or when communities have lost social cohesion-the likelihood of violent conflict increases. Second, investing in citizen security, justice, and jobs is essential to reducing violence. But there are major structural gaps in our collective capabilities to support these areas. Third, confronting this challenge effectively means that institutions need to change. International agencies and partners from other countries must adapt procedures so they can respond with agility and speed, a longer-term perspective, and greater staying power. Fourth, need to adopt a layered approach. Some problems can be addressed at the country level, but others need to be addressed at a regional level, such as developing markets that integrate insecure areas and pooling resources for building capacity Fifth, in adopting these approaches, need to be aware that the global landscape is changing. Regional institutions and middle income countries are playing a larger role. This means should pay more attention to south-south and south-north exchanges, and to the recent transition experiences of middle income countries.Publication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.Publication Doing Business 2014 : Understanding Regulations for Small and Medium-Size Enterprises(Washington, DC: World Bank Group, 2013-10-28)Eleventh in a series of annual reports comparing business regulation in 185 economies, Doing Business 2014 measures regulations affecting 11 areas of everyday business activity: Starting a business, Dealing with construction permits, Getting electricity, Registering property, Getting credit, Protecting investors, Paying taxes, Trading across borders, Enforcing contracts, Closing a business, Employing workers. The report updates all indicators as of June 1, 2013, ranks economies on their overall “ease of doing business”, and analyzes reforms to business regulation – identifying which economies are strengthening their business environment the most. The Doing Business reports illustrate how reforms in business regulations are being used to analyze economic outcomes for domestic entrepreneurs and for the wider economy. Doing Business is a flagship product by the World Bank and IFC that garners worldwide attention on regulatory barriers to entrepreneurship. More than 60 economies use the Doing Business indicators to shape reform agendas and monitor improvements on the ground. In addition, the Doing Business data has generated over 870 articles in peer-reviewed academic journals since its inception.Publication World Development Report 2006(Washington, DC, 2005)This year’s Word Development Report (WDR), the twenty-eighth, looks at the role of equity in the development process. It defines equity in terms of two basic principles. The first is equal opportunities: that a person’s chances in life should be determined by his or her talents and efforts, rather than by pre-determined circumstances such as race, gender, social or family background. The second principle is the avoidance of extreme deprivation in outcomes, particularly in health, education and consumption levels. This principle thus includes the objective of poverty reduction. The report’s main message is that, in the long run, the pursuit of equity and the pursuit of economic prosperity are complementary. In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Development Indicators 2005‹an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic development.Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.