COVID-19 Learning Losses, Parental Investments, and Recovery: Evidence from Low-Cost Private Schools in Nigeria

About 2 billion children were affected by school closures globally at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. This has led to documented learning losses while children were out of school, and an especially precarious future academic path for pupils in developing countries where learning and continued enrolment remain important issues. There is an urgent need to understand the extent of these learning and enrolment losses, and possible policy options to get children back on track. This paper studies the extent of learning losses and recovery in Africa's most populous country, Nigeria, and provides some evidence that a full recovery is possible. Using data from a random sample of schools, we find significant learning losses of about .6 standard deviations in English and Math. However, a program designed to slow down the curriculum and cover what was missed during school closures led to a rebound within 2 months, and a recovery of all learning losses. Students who were a part of the program do not lag behind one year later and remain in school.