The COVID-19 pandemic affected educational systems across the world. The number of cases of COVID-19 started to rise in March 2020 and many educational institutions and universities underwent closure. Most countries decided to temporarily close the educational institutions in order to reduce the spread of COVID-19. UNESCO estimates that at the height of the closures in April 2020, national educational shutdowns affected nearly 1.6 billion students in 200 countries: 94% of the student population and one-fifth of the global population.
Closures are estimated to have lasted for an average of 41 weeks (10.3 months). They have had significant negative effects on student learning, which are predicted to have substantial long-term implications for both education and earnings, with disproportionate effects. The lockdowns more highly affected already disadvantaged students, and students in low and middle income nations.
During the pandemic, education budgets and official aid program budgets for education had decreased. Scarcer education options impacted people with few financial resources, while those with more found education. New online programs shifted the labor of education from schools to families and individuals, and consequently, people everywhere who relied on schools rather than computers and homeschooling had more difficulty. Early childhood education and care as well as school closures impacted students, teachers, and families, and far-reaching economic and societal consequences are expected.
School closures shed light on various social and economic issues, including student debt, digital learning, food security, and homelessness, as well as access to childcare, health care, housing, internet, and disability services. The impact was more severe for disadvantaged children and their families, causing interrupted learning, compromised nutrition, childcare problems, and consequent economic cost to families who could not work.
In response to school closures, UNESCO recommended the use of distance learning programmes and open educational applications and platforms that schools and teachers can use to reach learners remotely and limit the disruption of education. In 2020, UNESCO estimated that nearly 24 million will dropout, with South Asia and Western Asia being the most affected.
As of early 2025, academic recovery from pandemic-related disruptions remained slow and uneven across many regions. While some data indicated modest gains in mathematics proficiency since 2022, progress in reading often lagged significantly or showed continued decline in certain areas. Experts noted that, at current rates, full academic recovery could take several more years, with average student achievement still behind pre-pandemic levels.
Past school closures
Efforts to slow the spread of COVID-19 through non-pharmaceutical interventions and preventive measures such as social-distancing and self-isolation have prompted the widespread closure of primary, secondary, and tertiary schooling in over 100 countries.
Previous outbreaks of infectious diseases have prompted, widespread school closings around the world, with varying levels of effectiveness. Mathematical models have shown that transmission may be delayed by closing schools. However, effectiveness depends on the contacts children maintain outside of school.
School closures appear effective in decreasing cases and deaths, particularly when enacted promptly. If school closures occur late relative to an outbreak, they are less effective and may not have any impact at all. Additionally, in some cases, the reopening of schools after a period of closure has resulted in increased infection rates. As closures tend to occur concurrently with other interventions such as public gathering bans, it can be difficult to measure the specific impact of school closures.
During the 1918–1919 influenza pandemic in the United States, school closures and public gathering bans were associated with lower total mortality rates. Cities that implemented such interventions earlier had greater delays in reaching peak mortality rates. Schools closed for a median duration of 4 weeks according to a study of 43 US cities' responses to the Spanish Flu. School closures were shown to reduce morbidity from the Asian flu by 90% during the 1957–58 outbreak, and up to 50% in controlling influenza in the US, 2004–2008.
Multiple countries successfully slowed the spread of infection through school closures during the 2009 H1N1 Flu pandemic. School closures in the city of Oita, Japan, were found to have successfully decreased the number of infected students at the peak of infection; however closing schools was not found to have significantly decreased the total number of infected students. Mandatory school closures and other social distancing measures were associated with a 29% to 37% reduction in influenza transmission rates. Early school closures in the United States delayed the peak of the 2009 H1N1 Flu pandemic. Despite the overall success of closing schools, a study of school closures in Michigan found that "district level reactive school closures were ineffective."
During the swine flu outbreak in 2009 in the UK, in an article titled "Closure of schools during an influenza pandemic" published in the Lancet Infectious Diseases, a group of epidemiologists endorsed the closure of schools in order to interrupt the course of the infection, slow further spread and buy time to research and produce a vaccine.
Having studied previous influenza pandemics including the 1918 flu pandemic, the influenza pandemic of 1957 and the 1968 flu pandemic, they reported on the economic and workforce effect school closure would have, particularly with a large percentage of doctors and nurses being women, of whom half had children under the age of 16. They also looked at the dynamics of the spread of influenza in France during French school holidays and noted that cases of flu dropped when schools closed and re-emerged when they re-opened. They noted that when teachers in Israel went on strike during the flu season of 1999–2000, visits to doctors and the number of respiratory infections dropped by more than a fifth and more than two fifths respectively.
Hazard controls
For schools and childcare facilities, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends short-term closure to clean or disinfect if an infected person has been in a school building regardless of community spread. When there is minimal to moderate community transmission, social distancing strategies can be implemented such as postponing or cancelling field trips, assemblies, and other large gatherings such as physical education or choir classes or meals in a cafeteria, increasing the space between desks, staggering arrival and dismissal times, limiting nonessential visitors, and using a separate health office location for children with flu-like symptoms. When there is substantial transmission in the local community, in addition to social distancing strategies, extended school dismissals may be considered.
As the pandemic progresses, schools may continue with remote learning or decide to reopen. Strategies such as cohorting, rotating schedules, eating lunch in the classroom, and utilizing outdoor spaces are some ways to minimize close contact. Additional precautions include face masks, hand sanitizer stations, rearranging classrooms to enable physical distancing, and frequent cleaning. The CDC made a School Decision Tree to aid administrators in the planning process for reopening. The American Academy of Pediatrics urges re-entry policies need to be flexible and responsive as new information about the virus emerges.
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine states that in-person instruction for grades K-5 and students with special needs should be prioritized to prevent children from falling behind. Younger children are at higher risk of suffering from long-term academic consequences and developmental deficits without in-person learning.
Academic integrity The impact on academic integrity has been observed around the world. A rise in contract cheating, academic file-sharing, and exam cheating were identified as particularly problematic. With remote learning, cheating has become far easier for students. There is no remorse from students who would rather succeed in class than learn. Online education has also exposed various as yet unresolved legal issues, including copyright and unapproved misuse of lectures.
Many institutions turned to commercial services to take over exam proctoring, but almost immediately concerns were raised about student privacy, surveillance, and the impact on student mental health.
The lack of student to teacher interaction also led some students to feel less passionate about the integrity of their work. Some students turned in half-completed assignments, got the answers from friends in class, or turned in nothing at all simply because education became less important due to COVID-19.
Due to COVID-19, many students had problems with staying focused and lost their sense of routine. Many researchers believe this is not due to the school closures, but to "brain fog" caused by the disease itself.
Engagement and focus are vital to the learning process, and some students feel they focus better in in-person classes.
Students may interpret that lack of structure to mean that they do not have to do anything, or they may find themselves overwhelmed with too much to do and an inability to determine what order to do it in. However, some students thrived in this new environment with test scores that went up during online learning.
Gender disparities
The COVID-19 lockdowns has widened the gender gap in education between females and males. The rapid spread of COVID-19 lockdowns forced many females into the traditional roles as caretakers. Common gender disparities that impact a female's education during the pandemic are finances enabling higher dropout rates, domestic violence, child marriage, early pregnancy, and exploitation of child labour.
Female caretakers drop out of schools to provide care for sick family members or become a source of income for their families. In settings with gender disparities in rates of school completion, girls are at increased risk of not returning to school after lockdown if tasked with income-generating activities or caretaking or they become pregnant. There is a correlation between increased unemployment rates with higher female school dropout rates. Malala Fund research estimates that as a result of the pandemic, 20 million girls in developing countries may never return to the classroom. Consequently, there is a decreased level of women returning to school, particularly in nations with poverty.