Children at risk of poorer education outcomes 'likely doubled'
The number of Australian children considered at risk of poorer health, education and life outcomes due to employment stress in the family has likely doubled to 1.4 million children this quarter, according to modelling published by the Mitchell Institute at Victoria University.
The COVID-19, Employment stress and student vulnerability in Australia report estimates an extra three quarters of a million children are now living in families experiencing employment stress.
Report author Kate Noble said governments at all levels needed to act swiftly to prevent children having their long-term educational, health and life outcomes damaged by the economic impact of COVID-19 related job loss.
“There is a strong correlation between children’s learning and development outcomes, and parental employment status,” she said.
Grattan Institute recommends 'tutoring blitz'
The Grattan Institute is recommending a $1b, six-month tutoring blitz for disadvantaged students to help them recover ground lost during Covid restrictions.,
The COVID catch-up: helping disadvantaged students close the equity gap report by Peter Goss and Julie Sonnerman says that while many students will recover without too much trouble, disadvantaged students will need extra help to regain the learning lost due to COVID-19, even with the best efforts of their teachers.
'We believe Australia should launch a $1 billion, six-month tutoring blitz to give 1 million disadvantaged students an extra boost.
'Our new report...uses a rigorous new analysis to examine the “gap” – the difference in achievement between disadvantaged students and their more advantaged peers. We find that the equity gap widened three times as quickly during the COVID-19 shutdown compared to during regular classes. Disadvantaged students lost a month or more of learning in a two-month period. Some will even have gone backwards, forgetting some of what they had previously learnt.'
The report outlines that disadvantaged students lost ground because they 'did it tougher' during the lockdown and recommends that governments adopt a highly targeted strategy to help them catch up across Australia.
'The best way to deliver this extra support is with a massive one-off tutoring blitz between now and Christmas. Done well, these sessions could boost student learning by five months between now and the end of the year – not just recovering the learning lost due to COVID-19 but closing some of the pre-existing gap.'