Students affected by school closures may lose RM740 expected annual income - ADB

 

Students affected by school closures in developing Asia stand to lose an average of US$180 (RM740), representing a 2.4 percent decline, in expected annual earnings, said the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

The present value of this future earning loss adds up to an estimated U$1.25 trillion (RM5.13 trillion), equivalent to 5.4 percent of the region’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2020, the bank said in its flagship economic publication, Asian Development Outlook (ADO) 2021.

"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 percent of 2020 GDP).

"But a pessimistic scenario puts the losses at U$1.8 trillion (7.6 percent of GDP)," it said, adding that learning and earning losses will rise the longer that schools remain closed.

Given that learning losses will substantially reduce future productivity and earnings, ADB suggested that governments adopt policies to help mitigate the potential damage and ensure that education systems emerge from this pandemic better than they were before.

It said schools were closed to varying degrees across developing Asia where, in a quarter of the region’s economies, schools were closed for 200 to 300 days, and in another fifth for a year or more.

ADB said only a handful of economies managed to keep schools open continuously. Remote learning strategies were deployed in most economies to keep students learning.

"But many students are constrained by access to resources like computers and the internet. This has limited their ability to learn at home.

Overall, students in developing Asia have lost 29 percent of a year of learning on average.

In South Asia, where closures have been longest, students lost more than half a year of learning, while students in East Asia lost 39 percent of a year in learning, students in Southeast Asia lost 35 percent, and in Central Asia 24 percent.

Schools have mostly stayed open in the Pacific, where learning losses were relatively low, at 8.0 percent.

- Bernama