IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp16531.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

COVID-19 and the European Education Performance Decline: A Focus on Primary School Children's Reading Achievement between 2016 and 2021

Author

Listed:
  • Schnepf, Sylke V.

    (European Commission, DG Joint Research Centre)

  • Granato, Silvia

    (European Commission, Joint Research Centre)

Abstract

This study uses the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) data, the only cross-national data having measured educational achievement during the COVID-19 pandemic, to investigate educational achievement decline of fourth graders across 21 European countries between 2016 and 2021. Learning decline estimated with PIRLS data is not only composed of learning loss due to COVID-19 but also European performance trends and national policy changes. The study illustrates the education performance decline in Europe by providing information on 20 year reading achievement trends, average performance declines and increasing number of the share of low performing students across European countries. Results of previous national counterfactual impact evaluation studies measuring learning decline in languages due to COVID-19 are compared to PIRLS reading achievement declines between 2016 and 2021. Furthermore, the study examines recent developments of educational inequalities within Europe by first comparing countries' education distributions between 2016 and 2021 and second by investigating changes in the share of children lacking important reading skills by socio-economic background.

Suggested Citation

  • Schnepf, Sylke V. & Granato, Silvia, 2023. "COVID-19 and the European Education Performance Decline: A Focus on Primary School Children's Reading Achievement between 2016 and 2021," IZA Discussion Papers 16531, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16531
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp16531.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dalit Contini & Maria Laura Di Tommaso & Caterina Muratori & Daniela Piazzalunga & Lucia Schiavon, 2021. "The Covid-19 pandemic and school closure: learning loss in mathematics in primary education," DEM Working Papers 2021/16, Department of Economics and Management.
    2. Noam Angrist & Simeon Djankov & Pinelopi K. Goldberg & Harry A. Patrinos, 2021. "Measuring human capital using global learning data," Nature, Nature, vol. 592(7854), pages 403-408, April.
    3. Giorgina Brown & John Micklewright & Sylke V. Schnepf & Robert Waldmann, 2007. "International surveys of educational achievement: how robust are the findings?," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 170(3), pages 623-646, July.
    4. Brian Jacob & Jesse Rothstein, 2016. "The Measurement of Student Ability in Modern Assessment Systems," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 30(3), pages 85-108, Summer.
    5. Brian Jacob & Jesse Rothstein, 2016. "The Measurement of Student Ability in Modern Assessment Systems," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 30(3), pages 85-108, Summer.
    6. Andreu Arenas & Lucas Gortazar, 2022. "Learning loss one year after school closures: Evidence from the Basque Country," Working Papers 2022/03, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Schnepf, Sylke, 2018. "Insights into survey errors of large scale educational achievement surveys," JRC Working Papers in Economics and Finance 2018-05, Joint Research Centre, European Commission.
    2. Eric Brunner & Joshua Hyman & Andrew Ju, 2020. "School Finance Reforms, Teachers' Unions, and the Allocation of School Resources," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(3), pages 473-489, July.
    3. Dickerson, Andy & Ratcliffe, Anita & Rohenkohl, Bertha & Van de Sijpe, Nicolas, 2024. "Anticipated labour market discrimination and educational achievement," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 222(C), pages 375-393.
    4. Rothstein , Jesse, 2017. "Inequality of Educational Opportunity? Schools as Mediators of the Intergenerational Transmission of Income," Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Working Paper Series qt02t2c4nn, Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley.
    5. Naomi Friedman-Sokuler & Moshe Justman, 2025. "Family background, education, and earnings: the limited value of “test-score transmission”," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 1075-1112, September.
    6. Jesse Rothstein, 2019. "Inequality of Educational Opportunity? Schools as Mediators of the Intergenerational Transmission of Income," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 37(S1), pages 85-123.
    7. Michele Pellizzari & Anne Fichen, 2017. "A new measure of skill mismatch: theory and evidence from PIAAC," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 6(1), pages 1-30, December.
    8. Glewwe, Paul & Song, Yang & Zou, Xianqiang, 2022. "Labor market outcomes, cognitive skills, and noncognitive skills in rural China," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 193(C), pages 294-311.
    9. Davis, Matthew & Ferreira, Fernando, 2022. "Housing disease and public school finances," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    10. Hernando Grueso, 2024. "Heterogeneous effects of violence on student achievement: Evidence from Colombia," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(2), pages 1536-1569, March.
    11. Joshua B. Gilbert & Zachary Himmelsbach & James Soland & Mridul Joshi & Benjamin W. Domingue, 2024. "Estimating Heterogeneous Treatment Effects with Item-Level Outcome Data: Insights from Item Response Theory," Papers 2405.00161, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2025.
    12. Domicolo, Carly & Nielsen, Eric, 2022. "Male–female achievement variance comparisons are not robust," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 220(C).
    13. Fleitas, Sebastián, 2018. "Who benefits when inertia is reduced? Competition, quality and returns to skill in health care markets," Research Department working papers 1161, CAF Development Bank Of Latinamerica.
    14. Jo Blanden & Matthias Doepke & Jan Stuhler, 2022. "Education inequality," CEP Discussion Papers dp1849, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    15. David (David Patrick) Madden, 2021. "The Dynamics of Multidimensional Poverty in a Cohort of Irish Children," Working Papers 202117, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    16. Shevchenko, Valentina V., 2019. "The reform of the higher education of Ukraine in the conditions of the military-political crisis," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 237-253.
    17. Singh, Abhijeet & Berg, Petter, 2024. "Myths of official measurement: Limits to test-based education reforms with weak governance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 239(C).
    18. Contini, Dalit & Tommaso, Maria Laura Di & Mendolia, Silvia, 2017. "The gender gap in mathematics achievement: Evidence from Italian data," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 32-42.
    19. Avvisati, Francesco & Givord, Pauline, 2023. "The learning gain over one school year among 15-year-olds: An international comparison based on PISA," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    20. Blaabæk, Ea Hoppe & Andersen, Lars Højsgaard & Fallesen, Peter, 2024. "From unequal injuries to unequal learning? Socioeconomic gradients in childhood concussions and the impact on children's academic performance," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 341(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16531. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.