Cambodian children experience extensive "learning loss" during pandemic: research

PHNOM PENH, April 5 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia's Ministry of Education and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) on Tuesday jointly revealed alarming new findings about learning loss experienced by Cambodian students during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The results emerged from the ministry's latest National Grade six Learning Assessment, which was conducted in November 2021 on more than 6,000 students in 230 schools across Cambodia and found that children had fallen behind in their learning during the pandemic, said a joint statement.

"Compared to the last equivalent learning assessment in 2016, the percentage of students who failed to demonstrate basic proficiency increased from 34 percent to 45 percent in Khmer language and from 49 percent to 74 percent in mathematics," the statement said.

Schools in Cambodia were closed for 250 days during 2020 and 2021, the equivalent of almost two thirds of the two school years. The learning assessment results reveal that although all students experienced learning loss after these closures, the impact was not evenly distributed.

"These are worrying results," said Education Minister Hang Chuon Naron. "We worked hard with all our partners to put in place remote learning measures for students when schools were closed during the pandemic."

Naron said the studies have shown that these measures did help to maintain learning for many, but the learning assessment results confirm that these activities simply couldn't be enough to compensate for all that is lost by children when they are not learning in a classroom.

"It's now time for us all to try and help Cambodian children catch up with the learning they have lost, a process that has begun but must now be accelerated with the support of every partner in the education sector," he added.

Foroogh Foyouzat, UNICEF representative in Cambodia, said globally, learning loss is perceived as one of the most damaging consequences of the pandemic, but Cambodia is one of the few countries that have proved its extent with hard data.

"We must also invest more in early grade mathematics and Khmer literacy," she said. "Young students need a solid foundation in these core subjects for better outcomes in later grades. At UNICEF, we pledge an all-out effort with all our partners to help make this happen."

Schools throughout the southeast Asian nation have reopened since November last year after most of the population have been vaccinated against COVID-19.