The international #PIRLS #Reading test scores came out on the 2021 assessment.
Much attention has been on South Africa, where we learned that 81% of children in grade 4 could not read a few simple paragraphs and answer basic questions.
This is an interesting article by Nic Spaull on lessons South Africa and other countries can learn from Brazil.
More on #PIRLS which has been getting a lot of attention over the last week.
To interpret results, important to note:
1. There were large discrepancies in reading scores coming into the pandemic. Globally, >400 million couldn’t perform basic literacy tasks after having attended school. There were country-level differences between low-income and high-income countries, and within country differences between income groups.
2. This is generally true of international assessments. The last round of #PIRLS was conducted in 2021 during intermittent global #School closures which were very context specific. Meaning closures wouldn’t account for all differences as there were already existing differences.
3. Singapore, for example, coming out on top isn’t that surprising as it generally performs highly. Compare to South Africa where there has been disinvestment in #Education and #Reading for some years.
4. Then there is the issue of isolating the effect of school closures on reading scores. The best we can do is an approximation of school closure duration nationally because education administration in many countries is decentralised.
After the initial, near universal school closures (March-April 2020), reopening and closures varied. Some were regional, state/province, district (or lower level) or school-specific.
5. There's also accounting for how broadly spread remote instruction was.
6. I think #COVID19 infection rates of student populations should also be taken into account. Students and households were affected differentially. Our paper on Ontario showed higher rates for student infections in schools in more deprived areas. This could have varied cognitive and policy effects, e.g., more closures in some areas or individual exclusion during infection periods.
Here's a useful commentary on #PIRLS by the UNESCO GEM Report Team.
The first robust cross-national evidence on the impact of COVID-19 on the learning outcomes of primary school age children was released yesterday. The 2021 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, or PIRLS, was the fifth round of a survey which has been organized by IEA since 2001. Conducted every five years, PIRLS study looks at […]
Prof Prachi Srivastava