# **Results**

We focus on four key outcome indicators for the simulations, with the Outcomes 1-3 being used to illustrate learning losses experienced by children, and Outcome 4 being used to demonstrate the economic loss due to school closures. The three learning-focused indicators measure learning in different ways, as described below, but help illustrate potential learning losses experienced by children. The primary outcome indicators are as follows:

- **Outcome 1: Learning Poverty.** The first simulation uses the UNESCO and World Bank’s Learning Poverty measure. Learning Poverty is defined as the inability to read and understand a simple ageappropriate text by age 10. This indicator combines the share of primary-aged children who are not in school (schooling deprived) and share of children at end of primary below the minimum proficiency level in reading (learning deprived). By combining schooling and learning, the indicator highlights the importance of both more access to schooling and the better learning that is critical to ensuring that schooling leads to acquisition of skills and capabilities.<sup>18</sup>

- **Outcome 2: Learning Adjusted Years of Schooling.** The second simulation focuses on LearningAdjusted Years of Schooling (LAYS). The World Bank’s Learning-Adjusted Years of Schooling (LAYS) concept combines quantity (access) and quality (learning outcomes) of schooling into a single easy-to-understand metric of progress (Filmer, Rogers, Angrist, and Sabarwal 2020). This is one of the components of the World Bank’s Human Capital Index, launched in 2018 and updated in 2020. It encompasses all levels of education before tertiary, since LAYS captures the educational life of students from 4 to 18 years.

- **Outcome 3: Percent below Minimum Proficiency in PISA.** The third simulation uses OECD’s (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) PISA, which measures learning outcomes of 15-year-olds in reading, math, science, and other skills such as collective problem-solving. Unlike the Learning Poverty analysis, which focuses on outcomes at the primary level, the analysis of education proficiency based on PISA focuses on student achievement of 15-year-olds, who are generally enrolled at the lower secondary level. Focusing on reading proficiency scores, we simulate how the share of children performing below minimum proficiency (PISA Level 2 or 407.47 points) could potentially change due to school closures and mitigation effectiveness of remote learning.

- **Outcome 4: Lifetime Economic Loss.** The fourth simulation presents the results from LAYS in monetary terms. As done in <u>Azevedo, Hasan et al. (2021), we use expected earnings information</u> from <u><mark>ILO (2020)</mark></u> and <u><mark>World Bank (2020)</mark></u> , together with the expected long-run return to education. We also compute aggregate results by bringing all expected earnings losses to their present value, assuming a work life of 45 years and a 3% discount rate. To make these results more realistic, we also adjust the aggregate loss by the expected adult survival rate (following the World Bank HCI) and the fact that not all workers will always be in gainful employment.

See Annex C for the percentage of population covered for the key outcome variables.

## Outcome 1. Learning Poverty

In the previous release of Learning Poverty results, baseline Learning Poverty was 52.7% for low- and middle-income<sup>19</sup> countries in 2015. In the current release, baseline global Learning Poverty for these

> 18 To learn more about the Learning Poverty indicator update see Azevedo, Montoya et al. (2021). For Learning Poverty, expected learning gains are adjusted according to the standard deviation for the assessment for each country. See annex E1 for all assessments and standard deviations used.

> 19 The estimation for low- and middle-income countries refers to the estimation for World Bank Part 2 countries, which also include the following high-income countries for Learning Poverty calculations: Chile, Croatia, Panama, Poland, and Trinidad and Tobago. Other high-income Part 2 countries include Antigua and Barbuda, Palau, the Seychelles, St. Kitts and Nevis, and Uruguay.

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