Is online learning the answer to the Covid learning gap?
Education researchers rarely agree. But on one thing, at least, they are unanimous: the pandemic has widened the gulf in educational attainment between disadvantaged pupils and their privileged classmates and exposed deep inequalities in our education system. A study by University College London’s Institute of Education found that during the first lockdown, while a fifth of pupils did less than an hour of schoolwork at home a day, just under a fifth regularly put in more than four hours. The study showed ‘substantial inequality’ between both regions and social groups. All children need these skills for their future wellbeing and disadvantaged children will have least access to them without the
