Covid-19 response inquiry finds students' reading scores never bounced back

Photo: 123RF Research for the Royal Commission into the Covid-19 response found children's maths achievement bounced back quickly after the Covid lockdowns, but their reading scores did not. The commission also found that teachers and other education and health workers who refused to comply with vaccine mandates suffered lasting harm to their careers. A NZ Council for Educational Research report produced for the Covid-19 response Royal Commission showed children's scores in Progressive Achievement Tests (PATs) of maths dipped in 2020 and again in 2021, before returning to their 2019 levels in 2022. Their reading comprehension scores also dipped in 2020 and 2021, but remained depressed in 2022 and 2023. NZCER senior statistician David Coblentz said the impacts on reading and maths were modest by global standards, which matched New Zealand's relatively short school closures during lockdowns compared with some other countries. He said disruption was greater in Auckland and schools with more socioeconomic barriers. "We can see where the impact was heightened, and found two key implications," he said. "First, there may remain a need for sustained and targeted mathematics catch-up for high-barrier Auckland schools and Māori and Pasifika learners. Reading may also need a closer look - achievement levels were likely already in decline pre-COVID, so the decline shown here may not be attributable to school closures alone." Meanwhile, the commission's phase two report, published on Tuesday, said the government's decisions helped reduce the educational effects of the Covid-19 lockdowns. "The shift to online learning early in the response, the successful elimination of Covid-19 in 2020 (allowing the return to face-to-face learning for much of that year), and ministers' clear focus on reopening schools as soon as safely possible in 2021 all helped reduce learning loss," it said. "School attendance in New Zealand has taken almost four years since the end of lockdowns to get back to pre-Covid-19 levels. Even so, our research indicates that, while school closures did have effects on learning, they were comparatively modest by international standards. We cannot fully estimate the flow-on effects of any lower achievement at school on longer-term educational achievement and labour-market outcomes, such as employment and earnings." Photo: 123RF The teacher vaccine mandate The Royal Commission's report said teachers and healthcare workers who refused to comply with vaccine mandates suffered significant "scarring" to their income and employment outcomes. The report said the education worker mandate aimed to protect children and young people from infection. "At the time the mandate decisions were being made, children under 12 were not eligible for vaccination and 12-17 year olds 'were amongst the last group of New Zealanders to become eligible' and so had low levels of immunisation," it said. "The Cabinet paper seeking approval for the education sector mandate also noted that providing this greater level of protection would enable schools to remain open where there were Covid-19 cases or reduced public health measures in place, helping 'good educational outcomes'." The report said the government was aware of opposition to mandatory vaccination, the likely pressure it would put on school staff levels, and potential labour market impacts. "However, there was no assessment in the Cabinet paper of the potential scale of opposition and implications for education providers, learners and their families, nor of the income and employment effects for people who declined vaccination," it said. "As it turned out, the employment and wage scarring impacts of mandates in New Zealand were significant. Research conducted by this Inquiry found that the introduction of mandates did encourage some members of the education and health sector workforces to get vaccinated (about 7.4 percent and 3.0 percent of each workforce, respectively). Those who declined to get immunised in time for the mandates' implementation (4.2 percent of the education workforce and 2.8 percent of healthcare staff) faced substantial employment and income losses." The report said July 2024, almost 25 percent of education workers who declined vaccination were not in employment, compared to 11 percent of those who got vaccinated early. Controlling for worker characteristics (such as age and length of service) reduces this employment gap from 14 percent to 12 percent. Conditional on having a job, average annual real wage growth for those who declined vaccination was 2.5 percent lower, or 4.7 percent lower if the workers had left the education sector, the report said. "For health sector workers who declined vaccination, employment rates were 70 percent, compared to 89 percent for those who were vaccinated earlier (controlling for worker characteristics reduces the gap from 19 percent to 16 percent). The average annual real wage growth for those who declined...

Covid-19 response inquiry finds students' reading scores never bounced back

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