Lainey Colglazier

The socio-economic status of a Swiss student has always had an influence on their educational performance.  During the pandemic, these divides became much more prominent as students had to switch from in person to online learning.  In addition to students, those in the working class with less education also saw a disproportionate decrease in employment and income.

COVID-19 effect on educational inequalities in students

In Switzerland, socio-economic status plays a large role in educational outcomes.  This concerning fact has been flagged by the OECD for some time (Leybold-Johnson, 2021).  In the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, the divides in education Switzerland already sees became even more exacerbated as a result of disadvantaged youths falling through the learning net and resources not being properly funded to ensure a productive learning environment.

School shutdowns have led to an estimated learning loss of between 1 and 5 months among students.  The learning loss does not affect every student the same, as students from lower socio-economic family backgrounds generally do worse with lockdowns when compared to their peers due to less access to technical equipment and less support from their families (Leybold-Johnson, 2021).

Is keeping schools open doing more harm than good? Keeping schools open allows students the opportunity to learn in the more traditional sense, but with rising numbers of infections.  Switzerland has kept schools very open when compared to other countries in the world (n.a., 2021).  There are measures that can be put into place to try to prevent the spread such as mandatory masks and testing, but even with these measures Switzerland still saw unprecedented numbers of COVID 19 infections among school aged people.

Various reports (and this blog post) show that there have still been learning deficits amongst Swiss students despite keeping schools open.  The complex question of whether or not it was right to keep schools open is based on more than this broad statement.  Currently, the Swiss federal government is holding their original decision that schools will stay open with relaxed measures to prevent spread of infection, citing “Quality education is a right and a necessity. The low morbidity of SARS-CoV-2 infections among children does not justify drastic and widespread measures” (Leybold-Johnson, 2021).

PISA 2018 performance in reading and number of instruction days upper secondary schools were fully closed in 2020, the size of the bubbles represent the number of COVID-19 cases per million inhabitants from the start of the pandemic until 31 December 2020 (OECD, 2021).

What has the “SDG in context” class to say?  There was a recent discussion on the questions and discussion forum on the Moodle page for this class.  A question was posed pondering how to rebuild the lost educational gains we saw due to the pandemic.  This is an equally important and urgent question globally.

The original author of the question said it might be helpful to divide the students into smaller subgroups that are able to meet in person.  The author raised excellent points that in person meetings not only help students learn, but also help teachers to be able to look out for signs of distress in a student’s life, such as malnourishment or abuse.

Many more solutions were hypothesized on the thread including getting parents and grandparents involved and potentially supplying them with at home learning materials or online classes, having small groups meet once a week to collect assignments and nourishment if required, instruction via radio, and navigating back to the pre-pandemic system while learning from the pit falls seen in the education system due to the pandemic.  While these solutions may solve a number of issues the majority of students face, I feel that they are still leaving out students who are disadvantaged and may not have a parent available to work with them, or the technology to be able to follow online instruction.  While articles have reported this is not as big of an issue for Switzerland (Albiser et al., 2020), there still exists a small percentage of the population experiencing these issues, and their education is falling further behind their peers while they are being overlooked.

There is no one good way to solve these educational shortcomings, which is why it hasn’t been done yet.  But the original post and subsequent responses highlight that the issue is only growing with the passage of time, so the urgency supporting these students to catch up to the educational levels of their peers is crucial.

COVID-19 effect on lower educated working adults

Prior to the pandemic, there was already a gap both with gender and socio-economic status in relation to education.  Due to these preexisting gaps, when the pandemic happened, these communities were more effected than their counterparts.  Women and people with less formal education saw the steepest decline in income and employment during the pandemic.  On an encouraging note, female representation in tertiary education continues to grow, with a larger percentage of women than men in the same age group earning tertiary qualification (Switzerland 2021).

According to the OECD, young adult women are less likely to be employed than men in their age group, especially in those with lower levels of education.  Only 57% of 25-34 year old women are with below secondary attainment were employed in 2020 as compared to 74% of men in Switzerland.  Of those with below secondary attainment, women earn 77% as much as men.  The number raises to 84% in women with post-secondary non-tertiary education (Switzerland 2021).

The pandemic did not only effect students but reports also show that unemployment numbers in adults with below upper secondary attainment rose by 3.6% while unemployment rates for tertiary educated adults remained stable (Leybold-Johnson, 2021).

Solution

So far, I have identified the problems in both the formal educational system and labor force surrounding adults without tertiary education, the preexisting issues that factor into the exacerbation of these educational inequalities, and some thoughts from the class.  Yet the question remains, what can be done to make things better? Here, I will refer to some ideas brought to light by the lecturers of the seminar series.

In her seminar, Ursula Renold said permeability of the education system is the main driver to improve quality education and to overcome inequalities.  There are conditions that must be met in order to make this goal a reality. Actions include combining formal, nonformal, and informal learning, and recognition of prior learning. In addition, the educational system that should address the needs of society including the business sector as a learning location for adults, and give the business sector in a legal and institutional sense a major role to play in the future of education.

The pandemic disrupted the entire educational system and produced educational losses in students and unfair levels of unemployment in lesser educated adults.  However, this disruption could be used as a positive change to rebuild a more permeable educational system with more equal opportunities for both disadvantaged youths in school systems and adults in the labor force with less formal education.

References

Albiser, E., Echazarra, A., Fraser, P., Fülöp, G., Schwabe, M., & Tremblay, K. (2020). Switzerland – Country Note. oecd.org. Retrieved March 26, 2022, from https://www.oecd.org/education/Switzerland-coronavirus-education-country-note.pdf

Coronavirus crisis is exacerbating inequality in Switzerland. Coronavirus crisis is exacerbating inequality in Switzerland – KOF Swiss Economic Institute | ETH Zurich. (2021, February 23). Retrieved March 26, 2022, from https://kof.ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/media/press-releases/2021/02/Coronavirus-crisis-is-exacerbating-inequality-in-Switzerland.html

Huber, S. G., & Helm, C. (2020). Covid-19 and schooling: Evaluation, assessment and accountability in times of crises—reacting quickly to explore key issues for policy, practice and research with the School Barometer. Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability, 32(2), 237–270. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11092-020-09322-y

Leybold-Johnson, I. (2021, December 3). Covid school closures: Is the Swiss Way Sustainable? SWI swissinfo.ch. Retrieved March 26, 2022, from https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/covid-school-closures–is-the-swiss-way-sustainable-/47162956

Leybold-Johnson, I. (2021, September 16). Educational inequalities highlighted by covid-19 pandemic. SWI swissinfo.ch. Retrieved March 26, 2022, from https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/educational-inequalities-highlighted-by-covid-19-pandemic/46952548

OECD. (2021). Switzerland. Education at a Glance 2021 : OECD Indicators | OECD iLibrary. Retrieved March 26, 2022, from https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/cde73ce1-en/index.html?itemId=%2Fcontent%2Fcomponent%2Fcde73ce1-en#section-d12020e20917