COVID-19 can undermine life-long perspectives of young people. Students globally lost eight months of learning and the impact varies widely from staggering 12 months in South Asia and Latin America and Caribbean to modest 4 months in North America and Europe and Central Asia. Recent McKinsey study identifies three archetypes of countries:
🚩 Most affected countries with moderate levels of pre-COVID-19 learning and significant delays in education, where students may be nine to 15 months behind.
🚩 Prepandemic-challenged countries, with very low levels of pre-COVID-19 learning, where losses were daunting but not so dramatic in absolute terms, about three to eight months
🚩 Least affected are high-performing countries, with relatively high levels of pre-COVID-19 performance, where losses were limited to one to five months.

Lower levels of learning translate into lower future earnings potential for students and lower economic productivity for nations (📉 losing 1 percent of global GDP annually, according to McKinsey estimates). By using scenario modelling UNDP came to similar conclusions. The study shows how governments can make choices today that have the greatest potential to boost progress in the future. School systems can respond across multiple horizons to help students get back on track: ⭐Resilience, 🔁Reenrollment, 🔼Recovery, and 💡Reimagining.