KUALA LUMPUR – Students affected by school closures in developing Asia stand to lose an average of US$180 (RM738), representing a 2.4% decline, in expected annual earnings, said the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
The present value of these future earning losses adds up to an estimated U$1.25 trillion, equivalent to 5.4% of the region’s gross domestic product in 2020, said the bank in its flagship economic publication Asian Development Outlook for this year.
“In a more optimistic scenario, for the effectiveness of remote learning during the Covid-19 pandemic, total losses are equivalent to U$0.8 trillion (3.6% of 2020 GDP).
“But, a pessimistic scenario puts the losses at U$1.8 trillion (7.6% of GDP).”
Learning and earning losses will rise the longer schools stay shut, it said.
Given that learning losses will substantially reduce future productivity and earnings, ADB suggested that governments adopt policies to mitigate the potential damage and ensure education systems emerge from the pandemic better than they were before.
It said schools have been closed in varying degrees across developing Asia, with a quarter of the region’s economies seeing closures for 200 to 300 days, and a year or more in a fifth.
Only a handful of economies managed to keep schools open continuously, said ADB, adding that remote learning strategies were deployed in most economies.
“But, many students are constrained by (a lack of) access to resources like computers and the internet. This has limited their ability to learn from home.”
Overall, students in developing Asia have lost 29% of a year of learning on average.
In South Asia, where closures have been longest, students lost more than half a year of education, while those in East Asia lost 39%, Southeast Asia (35%) and Central Asia (24%).
Schools have mostly stayed open in the Pacific, where learning losses are relatively low (8.0%). – Bernama, April 28, 2021
