The lasting impacts of remote learning in the absence of remedial policies: Evidence from Brazil

Abstract

The transition to remote learning in the context of COVID-19 led to dramatic setbacks in education. Is the return to in-person classes sufficient to eliminate these losses eventually? We study this question using data from the universe of secondary students in São Paulo State, Brazil. We estimate the causal medium-run impacts of the length of exposure to remote learning during the pandemic through a triple-differences strategy, which contrasts changes in educational outcomes across municipalities and grades that resumed in-person classes earlier (already by Q4/2020) or only in 2021. We find that relative learning losses from longer exposure to remote learning did not fade out over time—attesting that school reopening was at the same time key but not enough to mitigate accumulated learning losses in face of persistence. Using observational and experimental variation in local responses across 645 municipalities, we further document that remedial educational policies in the aftermath of the pandemic boosted learning recovery.