Pandemic School Closures May Increase Inequality in Test Scores

Catherine Haeck and Pierre Lefebvre

No 20-03, Working Papers from Research Group on Human Capital, University of Quebec in Montreal's School of Management

Abstract: Schools have been closed across the country and will remain closed until September in most provinces. The decision to reopen should take into account current inequalities in cognitive skills across the country and the impact of school interruptions on knowledge accumulation. In this article, we use information from a companion paper to estimate the socioeconomic achievement gaps of 15-year-olds across Canada and assess the impact of the pandemic on inequalities in education. Using estimates from the literature on the impact of school closures, we find that the socioeconomic skills gap measured using PISA data could increase by more than 30 percent.

Keywords: cognitive skills; socioeconomic inequalities; PISA; pandemic; Canadian provinces (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I20 I21 I28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 11 pages
Date: 2020-05, Revised 2020-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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https://grch.esg.uqam.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/ ... e_GRCH_WP20-03-5.pdf Revised version, 2020 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Pandemic School Closures May Increase Inequality in Test Scores (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:grc:wpaper:20-03

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