At the time of writing, close to 7 million cases of coronavirus infections have been identified globally. The actual number of people infected is likely a multiple of those estimates given lack of widespread testing in many countries and the fact that many individuals with the virus are asymptomatic. The official number of deaths from COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus, is around 400,000. Again, actual figures are likely to be much larger due to underreporting. The impacts of the crisis on students and education systems are massive, both immediately due to school closures, but also in the short and medium term due to the economic crisis and the risk of multiple surges from the pandemic. Catholic schools and their students will be exposed as is the case for other schools.
As part of my volunteer work (rather than in a formal capacity as an employee of the World Bank, which is a secular organization), I documented some of these impacts as well as potential responses in a two-part open access article published in the Journal of Catholic Education (go to https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/ce_covid/). The journal has a rolling special issue on the crisis that welcomes submission, so if you have ideas for submissions, it is worth trying out. The analysis I carried includes results from a small survey implemented with the International Office of Catholic Education among its members, which are national Catholic education associations. The results of the survey are available in the papers published in the Journal of Catholic Education, as well as in the Global Catholic Education 2020 report at http://oiecinternational.com/globalcatholiceducationreport/). Apart from the analysis of the impacts of the crisis and responses, the Global Report includes a discussion of long-term trends in enrollment in Catholic schools, their contributions to education systems, the economy, and communities, and a detailed statistical appendix with data at the country level. Below, I provide some more general insights on potential impacts for education systems more generally.
Consider first school closures. More than nine in ten students in schools globally have been affected by temporary school closures according to data from UNICEF. After initial closures in China and a few other East Asian countries, European countries and the United States were part of the second wave of closures. The closures however quickly spread to other regions later. By the end of March, most countries had implemented full (national) closures that apply to public and private K12 schools alike, and often to universities as well. Globally, at least 1.6 billion students have been affected
School closures are likely to have a wide array of negative impacts on students. Even if school networks have the capability of implementing distance learning programs of high quality, student learning is likely to be affected. Lack of access to school meals may affect children’s nutrition, in turn affecting learning negatively. Other potential consequences may include poor mental health, higher risks of violence at home, and exposure to toxic stress, as well as the risk for some students to simply drop out of school all together. Some of these impacts may be indirect but nevertheless long-lasting. For example, if a lesser emphasis is placed on young children’s development at home in order to prioritize activities for children of primary and secondary school age, this may impact young children’s future for years to come because of poor early childhood development. Across the board and age groups, children from disadvantaged backgrounds are likely to suffer the most, not only because they often lack access to good distance learning options, but also because income losses for their parents due to unemployment or underemployment will affect them in other ways, including through a higher likelihood of dropping out and not returning to school when the crisis subsides. In low income households, girls may be especially at risk as the prevalence of early childbearing and child marriage often increases during crises.
Consider next economic impacts. The International Monetary Fund suggests that globally, GDP may decrease by three percent in 2020 (the decrease in the second quarter will be much larger). This would represent the deepest recession since the Great Depression. In percentage points from the base, advanced economies will suffer from larger losses in GDP than emerging and developing economies, but the gap between both sets of countries is smaller when considering changes in GDP per capita since population growth is higher in emerging and developing economies. In addition, emerging and developing economies are less equipped in terms of fiscal space and institutional capacity to respond to the crisis. The effects of the crisis on children and households may have more severe consequences in emerging and developing economies because a larger share of the population already lives in extreme poverty. Simulations relying on IMF growth projections suggest that 84 to 132 million people might fall into poverty. Of those, half would be are children. Remittances to low and middle-income countries may decline by 20 percent. The Food Security Information Network estimates that the crisis may almost double the number of people suffering from acute hunger in low and middle-income countries from 135 million people to 265 million by the end of 2020. Some groups are especially at risk from both the health and economic consequences of the crisis. This includes refugees and internally displaced persons.
The economic crisis will also affect students in profound ways. Many children may not return to school when they reopen if in the context of the crisis the out-of-pocket and opportunity costs of doing become too high, especially for disadvantaged groups. The crisis may affect public schools by putting pressure on state funding for schools. It is likely to affect even more the financial sustainability of private schools, including nonprofit low cost schools, especially in countries where the schools do not benefit from state support. Large increases in unemployment or underemployment will lead to income losses for households and thus a reduced ability to afford tuition costs for a large swath of the population.
What might be the broader consequences of the crisis for children in the developing world? Although health risks from Ebola are much more severe than those from the current pandemic, a review of the experience of West Africa during the 2014 Ebola outbreak suggests that effects may be both severe and widespread. In Sierra Leone, in some areas affected by the outbreak, teenage pregnancies for adolescent girls increased while school enrolment dropped by a third. Antenatal care visits and hospital deliveries and C-sections dropped as some facilities closed. The rate of full immunization for children under one year of age dropped by half, leading to an increase in cases of measles. In one district, diagnoses of severe acute malnutrition among children more than doubled. Finally, a majority of children in focus groups perceived an increase in violence against children in their community.
As economists, many of us have access to data and other resources that enables us to help in some way. Some of us are also active with nonprofits that are engaged on the ground. We can help to mitigate the impact of the crisis on schools and students – but we need to think about the best way to do so. The crisis will have negative effects for some time. While some solutions are needed immediately, others will take time to implement, and this is where we may perhaps make a small difference. While none of us has bullet proof solutions, if you are interested in thinking about this especially in terms of how Catholic schools and their students may be affected and how to respond, please let me know! (You may contact me at qwodon@worldbank.org).
Quentin Wodon
World Bank
