Evidence to date indicates that school closures led to sizeable learning losses (at least in the short run), and that these were concentrated among children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds.
As to why children from disadvantaged backgrounds were more affected by school closures, there are a number of possibilities, including differences in parental support, access to high-speed broadband, and the use of private tuition.
In the developing world, large segments of the population have little or no access to broadband, let alone private tuition. So you might expect the impact of school closures would be particularly pronounced there. And indeed, this appears to be the case.
A recent survey in India illustrates just how much the developing world’s poorest students rely on in-person teaching. The survey, carried out in August by a group of independent researchers called Road Scholarz, interviewed almost 1,400 households from 15 of India’s 36 states and union territories.
The sample is not nationally representative. Rather, the researchers aimed to collect data on India’s ‘scheduled castes and scheduled tribes’ (those that have low status within the country’s caste system). So while 25% of the general population belongs to those groups, 60% of the sample respondents did.
The researchers note that schools in India have been closed for more than 500 days, and that only “a small minority of privileged children were able to study online in the safety and comfort of their own homes”.
They report results separately for households in urban versus rural areas, given that levels of income tend to be higher in the former group. The results are startling.
As a test of literacy, children in the survey were asked to read a simple sentence in Hindi (“since the coronavirus pandemic, schools have been closed”). And those who read the sentence “fluently” or “with difficulty” were judged to be literate.
The table below gives the percentage of literate children aged 10–14 in different groups, as well as the corresponding figures from the 2011 census. Values in the census column are population-weighted averages of the figures for the 15 states covered by the survey.
In none of the groups were more than 74% of children judged to be literate, based on what the researchers note is a very broad definition of that term. By contrast, the figure from the last census was 91%. And that was using the narrower definition of being able to “read and write with understanding in any language”.
Although the values on the left are not directly comparable to those in the census column (due to the non-representativeness of the sample), the researchers argue that this contrast “is too stark to be plausibly explained by the underprivileged background” of survey respondents.
Aside from documenting a worryingly low literacy rate in their sample, the researchers made several other findings. Some of these are shown in the chart below:
As the chart indicates, 37% of children from rural households were not studying at all when the survey was taken, and almost 60% had not met their teacher in the last month.
The researchers also asked the children’s parents a number of questions. Three quarters said that their child’s reading abilities had declined during the lockdown, and over 90% said that schools should reopen (rising to 97% among parents from rural households).
Overall, the Road Scholarz survey paints a disturbing picture of Indian schooling under lockdown (or, rather, the lack thereof). The full report is worth reading in full.
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Honestly if men want to wear dresses, I really don’t care at all, and I don’t think they should be prevented from doing so in the workplace. I think we have to draw a clear distinction between adults cross dressing and the indoctrination of children to the toxic notion that they should medicalize experimentation with gender identity. If we put it all in the same bucket, it’s so easy to conflate actual child abuse with adults doing things that are actually harmless to those around them.
Put more simply, my flight is going to be no more or less relaxing if a man on the flight is wearing a dress. Children’s lives are potentially going to be destroyed by what is happening with gender identity brainwashing in schools and other settings. Getting upset about the former makes it easier for the practitioners of this abuse to accuse us of bigotry when we try to stop the latter.
Not me. If I’m getting on plane and I see that a male pilot is all decked out in women’s clothing, I’m getting off quicker than a flash.
You’ve missed the point. The former leads to the latter. Every action has a reaction, some reactions are knee-jerk and immediate, some reactions are delayed and take place over decades. They all matter of course, but the knee jerk is easier to see and dismiss. We are currently suffering from the side effects of decades of feminism, where the traditional understanding of male and female, together with the natural, social bond of family, has been trivialised to the point of mocking. What is born from from the ideology of sameness is the idea of togetherness, and what is born from that is the lack of individuality i.e. we become less individual and become part of a mindless blob. It’s difficult to see the roots, but they’re there if you dig deep enough
Their true identity? Mentally ill.
If memory serves Sir Richard Branson spent his whole dressing up as stewardess, as we used to call, so plus ca change….
Doesn’t a uniform itself restrict the expression of one’s individual identity, more or less by definition?
The key is in the word: uniform.
Being able to chose between one particular pair of trousers and one particular skirt isn’t exactly broadening the scope for self expression, unless what you are looking to express is your grasp of reality.
I’m running out of adjectives to describe the stupidity and sheer inanity of these people.
I think this will justify some Croc Dundee style verification of gender
By wearing skirts? Good luck.
I think my preferred pronoun is I’m a f**kwit. That should work beautifully in most English sentences instead of Mr.
It’s all very well, but how does a passenger know that the flight crew’s grasp of their complex machine is not underpinned by the same denial of reality?
Agreed, and I ask myself how long before this abandonment of reality spreads to the maintenance staff responsible for the safety of the aircraft.
On a more serious note, I think the true identity of these people is male or female flight attendant insofar the passengers – supposedly the customers whose well-being they’re supposed to care for – are concerned. They may well have other, truer identities in private but this shouldn’t be of concern to people who only meet them in their professional capacity.
For Virgin Atlantic read Ratners
Branson panders to the Woke lobby in bid to sell seats. I don’t think there’s too much else to say about this nonsense. It’s a typical Branson promotional stunt: get in there first, be bold, be brash, sell, sell, sell and make more spondoolies for Sir Dick. Branson really doesn’t care much about what he does as long as he makes money so he misses the point that pandering to this movement in a massive virtue signalling act only adds to the erosion of boundaries, the loss of identity, and confusion. To a child, needing some clear certainties, this must be quite unsettling and it’s the children who are most at risk in all of this.
The chap on the left end looks like a man. Not sure about the others. Not a pilot among them.
Hands on hips …. they all gay to me!!
Transvestites at work, great. Surely if they are transexuals they can transition? Why do men have to be allowed to wear a skirt?
Because you’re supposed to accept that common gay antics are normal and that whoever doesn’t employ them isn’t. This is supposed to be achieved by an unending barrage of them.
Corollary: Freddy Mercury was a lot less of a great singer than Bruce Dickinson who already isn’t.
Not long ago, a study found that the natural human reaction a man has to seeing this kind of perversion is equal to viewing grotesque images of maggots and rotting flesh. Good parents would also object to their children being subjected to this kind of degeneracy whilst travelling to their exciting holiday destination.
It’s a two-pronged attack – one is cultural terrorism, the other is to dissuade people from flying.
No worries – kilts have always been accptable
Should make the “Mile High Club” interesting.
Could also be interesting if a plane crashes into the sea and there aren’t enough life rafts available. “Women and children first” will be pretty meaningless if everyone can choose to be whatever gender suits them at the time. Where do non binary and gender questioning people fit into the evacuation plan?
Bloody good point.
I (male) started wearing skirts with otherwise masculine attire when the masks came in, mandatory in closed spaces where I live. I reckon skirts are just as good as protection against viruses as masks, but are not visually as off-putting. They also have the advantage of coming up at the back 3 inches higher than even high-waisted made-to-measure trousers, which makes for vastly improved comfort. Also more practical for a sit-down wee, as we prostate oldies need.
I started wearing skirts when the masks came in, mandatory where I live. I reckon they are as good a protection against viruses as masks, but are not so off-putting. Besides they come up at the back three inches higher, which makes for vastly more comfort. Higher that is that even high-waisted made to measure trousers. Besides, for those elderly of us who have to sit to wee, more practical.