Our Children's Learning Loss: A path to post-Covid-19 school recovery in Malaysia

The World Bank estimates that Malaysia’s learning poverty is already high and that unless swift and bold action is taken, it will worsen.

Malaysia has had one of the highest learning losses among Asian developing nations and exceeds losses of all Asean members, except Myanmar (Asian Development Bank April 2021).

With school closures of more than 40 weeks, most children in Malaysia have had a major loss in education progress. As many as 40 per cent have not been able to participate in online classes due to the lack of digital devices or internet connection.

Many who could connect found learning online suboptimal.

Certain groups of children are at higher risk of worse educational outcomes: children with disabilities, children living in poverty, those in remote areas of Sabah and Sarawak, from indigenous communities, stateless children, refugees and those in detention centres.

The number of children who have dropped out of school is uncertain. We lack concrete data on the number of pre-schoolers who did not start primary school or the number of primary sixers who did not continue with secondary education.

A 2021 Unicef study in Malaysia showed that 20 per cent of inner-city children have lost interest in schooling and do not plan to return.

Without lifesaving investments into the preschool sector (including children with learning disabilities), the ongoing education crisis will continue to be perpetuated for a number of years, as 25 per cent of all preschool child services have closed.

We now have many children entering Standard 1 with no reading or writing skills.

While most teachers have worked hard to support their students, they have received little of the additional resources and training support that they need.

There have been limited remedial lessons for those failing to catch up.

Students who move on, unprepared, to the next grade are missing key building blocks of knowledge for success (e.g., reading, writing and mathematics).

Furthermore, children are being incorrectly categorised as having learning difficulties.

The enormous disruption in schooling and loss of social interaction have had a serious impact on the mental health of our children, including a fear of falling behind in studies and concerns whether, as schools open, they will be safe from the virus. In addition, there will be students grieving for lost loved ones and struggling with all the resulting changes in their lives.

The following are the key significant implications we can expect, if we do not act boldly, quickly and comprehensively: