They describe it as a “profound learning crisis in Latin America and the Caribbean.” The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the World Bank (WB) analyzed the results of the PISA report in a joint publication and found that the pandemic had a negative impact on education in the region, i.e. on the majority of students aged 15 and over have acquired the basic skills they need.
The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), an initiative of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), measures what 15-year-old students around the world know and can do. The triennial test, introduced in 2000, measures not only whether students can reproduce what they have learned, but also how well they can apply their knowledge in unfamiliar environments inside and outside of school. This week, at the IDB Annual Meeting in the Dominican Republic, the organization presented the report “Learning Can't Wait: Lessons for Latin America and the Caribbean from PISA 2022” in collaboration with the World Bank.
The authors found that three out of four 15-year-olds in the region are unable to demonstrate basic math skills and more than half are unable to demonstrate basic reading skills. “There is a profound learning crisis,” says the 76-page report, “as the majority of 15-year-old students have not acquired the basic skills they need.” Furthermore, educational opportunities are extremely unequal, according to experts in the report.
“Learning trends are not going in the right direction, and countries in the region need to address achievement and equity gaps, as well as allocate more resources to the use of technology as an educational tool,” they added. According to the authors, in order to raise the level of education in the region, it is “urgent” to intervene at the secondary level to prioritize the recovery of learning losses and the accelerated acquisition of basic skills in mathematics. Although the region's countries performed slightly better in reading and science than in mathematics, half of students in LAC countries continued to lag behind in these subjects as well. “The evidence suggests that instruction at the right level and tutoring, perhaps using technology tools for education, can be helpful,” they say.
On average, OECD countries, which include the world's largest economies, invest three times more per student throughout their educational career than Latin American countries: $102,612 versus $36,972 per student. “But it’s not just the amount of investment that’s important, but also how the money is spent. In all LAC countries with data, performance in mathematics is lower than investment levels predict,” said the report published on Monday.
The IDB and the World Bank also recommend focusing support, as certain groups of students need specific support to improve. In most Latin American countries, the poorest students are more likely to perform poorly, and this proportion has remained unchanged after the pandemic. “Providing the poorest students with more flexible learning options, access to the internet and digital devices to accelerate their learning, and psychosocial support can help,” the report says.
A third recommendation in the report is to invest in reviving elementary school students' reading and math learning, as they have been among the hardest hit by the pandemic. Primary school students Governments must also promote programs or public policies that reduce school dropouts and repetition rates, particularly among male students, as they are more likely to drop out or repeat the year than women. “Early warning systems have shown positive results in some contexts in the region and could help identify students at risk and support them with interventions tailored to their needs,” the report said.
The report's authors found that principals in public and poorer schools are twice as likely to report a lack of access to digital resources and devices than principals in private and wealthier schools.
The 2022 PISA round is the first international learning test after the pandemic and paints a picture of how students learned during school closures. A total of 14 Latin American countries took part in 2022, a record for the region.