TY - JOUR
T1 - Gone with the pandemic
T2 - How did Covid-19 affect the academic performance of Colombian students?
AU - Abadía Alvarado, Luz Karime
AU - Gómez Soler, Silvia C.
AU - Cifuentes González, Juanita
N1 - © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
PY - 2023/7
Y1 - 2023/7
N2 - The Covid-19 pandemic is an unprecedented shock that has tested the responsiveness of education systems around the world. The international literature that has studied the Covid-19 pandemic and school performance is still limited. Colombia presents an interesting scenario for the analysis due to the prolonged school closures and long lockdowns it experienced in 2020, and the availability of a rich dataset on the results of a high school exit examination (Saber11) that was administered even during the pandemic. Using this data, we estimate whether the COVID-19 pandemic is associated to lower levels of performance amongst graduating high school students using a school and time fixed effects model, finding a negative relation. Due to the significant reduction in the number of students taking the national standardized high school exit exam in 2020, we use inverse probability weighting (IPW) regressions to control for possible selection bias. The results of these regressions show that the Covid-19 pandemic has a negative and statistically significant relation with the scores obtained by students on the Saber11 exam. These results are relevant because they provide evidence to motivate the design of public policies that mitigate the side effects of the pandemic on educational outcomes.
AB - The Covid-19 pandemic is an unprecedented shock that has tested the responsiveness of education systems around the world. The international literature that has studied the Covid-19 pandemic and school performance is still limited. Colombia presents an interesting scenario for the analysis due to the prolonged school closures and long lockdowns it experienced in 2020, and the availability of a rich dataset on the results of a high school exit examination (Saber11) that was administered even during the pandemic. Using this data, we estimate whether the COVID-19 pandemic is associated to lower levels of performance amongst graduating high school students using a school and time fixed effects model, finding a negative relation. Due to the significant reduction in the number of students taking the national standardized high school exit exam in 2020, we use inverse probability weighting (IPW) regressions to control for possible selection bias. The results of these regressions show that the Covid-19 pandemic has a negative and statistically significant relation with the scores obtained by students on the Saber11 exam. These results are relevant because they provide evidence to motivate the design of public policies that mitigate the side effects of the pandemic on educational outcomes.
KW - Covid-19
KW - Learning losses
KW - Sample selection
KW - Standardized tests
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85153625630&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.ijedudev.2023.102783
DO - 10.1016/j.ijedudev.2023.102783
M3 - Article
C2 - 37123870
AN - SCOPUS:85153625630
SN - 0738-0593
VL - 100
SP - 102783
JO - International Journal of Educational Development
JF - International Journal of Educational Development
M1 - 102783
ER -