Online tutoring reduces by half the learning loss due to school closures: Evidence from a randomized experiment in Kenya

Matthieu Chemin and Jeremy Schneider

International Journal of Educational Development, 2025, vol. 117, issue C

Abstract: We evaluate the effects of an online tutoring program that started in 2016 and continued during the pandemic despite the schools being closed for 9 months in Kenya. Using videoconferences, volunteer students from a Canadian university tutored grade 6 students (12 years old) in a rural school in Kenya, on the topics of Maths and English. We implement a randomized experiment to test the effects. We find no effect when the schools are open, but a large effect when the schools are closed (0.4 SD increase in exam scores in the treatment group versus control group). Since we have data from before the pandemic, we are able to quantify the learning loss due to COVID-19: 0.8 SD. We conclude that online tutoring compensates half of the learning loss.

Keywords: Online Tutoring; Field Experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0738059325001300
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:injoed:v:117:y:2025:i:c:s0738059325001300

DOI: 10.1016/j.ijedudev.2025.103332

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Educational Development is currently edited by Stephen P Heyneman

More articles in International Journal of Educational Development from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().