Learning in the Shadow of the Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic and associated school closures led to significant learning disruption around the world (Patrinos, 2023; Schady et al, 2023), and there is a need to understand the relationship between this disruption and student learning outcomes in Indonesia. This study builds on a recent World Bank report, and aims to conduct a rigorous and comprehensive analysis of associated factors related to learning loss and disparity in Indonesia. This study draws on empirical data including both students' individual characteristics and structural factors such as governmental support related to the pandemic, school-based management and teacher quality. This study employed surveys from 2019 and 2023 to estimate the learning loss among 6,693 primary school students following the COVID-19 school closures. Additionally, it identified school and individual factors that promoted improvement in student learning during the pandemic. It found that students examined in March 2023 experienced a learning loss of 0.265 standard deviations in language (equivalent to approximately 10.6 months) and 0.276 standard deviations in math (11 months), compared to same-aged students in 2019. This study reveals increased disparity in learning outcomes across different groups. Students with lower socioeconomic status (SES) experienced larger learning losses than others. The poorest 20 percent of households experienced approximately two years of learning loss in both language and math, and students with less educated parents suffered from greater learning losses, including up to two years in language. Pre-existing gender and regional gaps in learning outcomes persisted during the pandemic, with boys underperforming girls, and rural schools underperforming urban schools in both 2019 and 2023