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Four of the biggest problems facing education—and four trends that could make a difference

Eduardo velez bustillo, harry a. patrinos.

In 2022, we published, Lessons for the education sector from the COVID-19 pandemic , which was a follow up to,  Four Education Trends that Countries Everywhere Should Know About , which summarized views of education experts around the world on how to handle the most pressing issues facing the education sector then. We focused on neuroscience, the role of the private sector, education technology, inequality, and pedagogy.

Unfortunately, we think the four biggest problems facing education today in developing countries are the same ones we have identified in the last decades .

1. The learning crisis was made worse by COVID-19 school closures

Low quality instruction is a major constraint and prior to COVID-19, the learning poverty rate in low- and middle-income countries was 57% (6 out of 10 children could not read and understand basic texts by age 10). More dramatic is the case of Sub-Saharan Africa with a rate even higher at 86%. Several analyses show that the impact of the pandemic on student learning was significant, leaving students in low- and middle-income countries way behind in mathematics, reading and other subjects.  Some argue that learning poverty may be close to 70% after the pandemic , with a substantial long-term negative effect in future earnings. This generation could lose around $21 trillion in future salaries, with the vulnerable students affected the most.

2. Countries are not paying enough attention to early childhood care and education (ECCE)

At the pre-school level about two-thirds of countries do not have a proper legal framework to provide free and compulsory pre-primary education. According to UNESCO, only a minority of countries, mostly high-income, were making timely progress towards SDG4 benchmarks on early childhood indicators prior to the onset of COVID-19. And remember that ECCE is not only preparation for primary school. It can be the foundation for emotional wellbeing and learning throughout life; one of the best investments a country can make.

3. There is an inadequate supply of high-quality teachers

Low quality teaching is a huge problem and getting worse in many low- and middle-income countries.  In Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, the percentage of trained teachers fell from 84% in 2000 to 69% in 2019 . In addition, in many countries teachers are formally trained and as such qualified, but do not have the minimum pedagogical training. Globally, teachers for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects are the biggest shortfalls.

4. Decision-makers are not implementing evidence-based or pro-equity policies that guarantee solid foundations

It is difficult to understand the continued focus on non-evidence-based policies when there is so much that we know now about what works. Two factors contribute to this problem. One is the short tenure that top officials have when leading education systems. Examples of countries where ministers last less than one year on average are plentiful. The second and more worrisome deals with the fact that there is little attention given to empirical evidence when designing education policies.

To help improve on these four fronts, we see four supporting trends:

1. Neuroscience should be integrated into education policies

Policies considering neuroscience can help ensure that students get proper attention early to support brain development in the first 2-3 years of life. It can also help ensure that children learn to read at the proper age so that they will be able to acquire foundational skills to learn during the primary education cycle and from there on. Inputs like micronutrients, early child stimulation for gross and fine motor skills, speech and language and playing with other children before the age of three are cost-effective ways to get proper development. Early grade reading, using the pedagogical suggestion by the Early Grade Reading Assessment model, has improved learning outcomes in many low- and middle-income countries. We now have the tools to incorporate these advances into the teaching and learning system with AI , ChatGPT , MOOCs and online tutoring.

2. Reversing learning losses at home and at school

There is a real need to address the remaining and lingering losses due to school closures because of COVID-19.  Most students living in households with incomes under the poverty line in the developing world, roughly the bottom 80% in low-income countries and the bottom 50% in middle-income countries, do not have the minimum conditions to learn at home . These students do not have access to the internet, and, often, their parents or guardians do not have the necessary schooling level or the time to help them in their learning process. Connectivity for poor households is a priority. But learning continuity also requires the presence of an adult as a facilitator—a parent, guardian, instructor, or community worker assisting the student during the learning process while schools are closed or e-learning is used.

To recover from the negative impact of the pandemic, the school system will need to develop at the student level: (i) active and reflective learning; (ii) analytical and applied skills; (iii) strong self-esteem; (iv) attitudes supportive of cooperation and solidarity; and (v) a good knowledge of the curriculum areas. At the teacher (instructor, facilitator, parent) level, the system should aim to develop a new disposition toward the role of teacher as a guide and facilitator. And finally, the system also needs to increase parental involvement in the education of their children and be active part in the solution of the children’s problems. The Escuela Nueva Learning Circles or the Pratham Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) are models that can be used.

3. Use of evidence to improve teaching and learning

We now know more about what works at scale to address the learning crisis. To help countries improve teaching and learning and make teaching an attractive profession, based on available empirical world-wide evidence , we need to improve its status, compensation policies and career progression structures; ensure pre-service education includes a strong practicum component so teachers are well equipped to transition and perform effectively in the classroom; and provide high-quality in-service professional development to ensure they keep teaching in an effective way. We also have the tools to address learning issues cost-effectively. The returns to schooling are high and increasing post-pandemic. But we also have the cost-benefit tools to make good decisions, and these suggest that structured pedagogy, teaching according to learning levels (with and without technology use) are proven effective and cost-effective .

4. The role of the private sector

When properly regulated the private sector can be an effective education provider, and it can help address the specific needs of countries. Most of the pedagogical models that have received international recognition come from the private sector. For example, the recipients of the Yidan Prize on education development are from the non-state sector experiences (Escuela Nueva, BRAC, edX, Pratham, CAMFED and New Education Initiative). In the context of the Artificial Intelligence movement, most of the tools that will revolutionize teaching and learning come from the private sector (i.e., big data, machine learning, electronic pedagogies like OER-Open Educational Resources, MOOCs, etc.). Around the world education technology start-ups are developing AI tools that may have a good potential to help improve quality of education .

After decades asking the same questions on how to improve the education systems of countries, we, finally, are finding answers that are very promising.  Governments need to be aware of this fact.

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Consultant, Education Sector, World Bank

Senior Adviser, Education

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The state of the global education crisis, a path to recovery.

The global disruption to education caused by the COVD-19 pandemic is without parallel and the effects on learning are severe. The crisis brought education systems across the world to a halt, with school closures affecting more than 1.6 billion learners. While nearly every country in the world offered remote learning opportunities for students, the quality and reach of such initiatives varied greatly and were at best partial substitutes for in-person learning. Now, 21 months later, schools remain closed for millions of children and youth, and millions more are at risk of never returning to education. Evidence of the detrimental impacts of school closures on children’s learning offer a harrowing reality: learning losses are substantial, with the most marginalized children and youth often disproportionately affected.

The State of the Global Education Crisis: A Path to Recovery charts a path out of the global education crisis and towards building more effective, equitable and resilient education systems.

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Public education is facing a crisis of epic proportions

How politics and the pandemic put schools in the line of fire

A previous version of this story incorrectly said that 39 percent of American children were on track in math. That is the percentage performing below grade level.

Test scores are down, and violence is up . Parents are screaming at school boards , and children are crying on the couches of social workers. Anger is rising. Patience is falling.

For public schools, the numbers are all going in the wrong direction. Enrollment is down. Absenteeism is up. There aren’t enough teachers, substitutes or bus drivers. Each phase of the pandemic brings new logistics to manage, and Republicans are planning political campaigns this year aimed squarely at failings of public schools.

Public education is facing a crisis unlike anything in decades, and it reaches into almost everything that educators do: from teaching math, to counseling anxious children, to managing the building.

Political battles are now a central feature of education, leaving school boards, educators and students in the crosshairs of culture warriors. Schools are on the defensive about their pandemic decision-making, their curriculums, their policies regarding race and racial equity and even the contents of their libraries. Republicans — who see education as a winning political issue — are pressing their case for more “parental control,” or the right to second-guess educators’ choices. Meanwhile, an energized school choice movement has capitalized on the pandemic to promote alternatives to traditional public schools.

“The temperature is way up to a boiling point,” said Nat Malkus, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank. “If it isn’t a crisis now, you never get to crisis.”

Experts reach for comparisons. The best they can find is the earthquake following Brown v. Board of Education , when the Supreme Court ordered districts to desegregate and White parents fled from their cities’ schools. That was decades ago.

Today, the cascading problems are felt acutely by the administrators, teachers and students who walk the hallways of public schools across the country. Many say they feel unprecedented levels of stress in their daily lives.

Remote learning, the toll of illness and death, and disruptions to a dependable routine have left students academically behind — particularly students of color and those from poor families. Behavior problems ranging from inability to focus in class all the way to deadly gun violence have gripped campuses. Many students and teachers say they are emotionally drained, and experts predict schools will be struggling with the fallout for years to come.

Teresa Rennie, an eighth-grade math and science teacher in Philadelphia, said in 11 years of teaching, she has never referred this many children to counseling.

“So many students are needy. They have deficits academically. They have deficits socially,” she said. Rennie said that she’s drained, too. “I get 45 minutes of a prep most days, and a lot of times during that time I’m helping a student with an assignment, or a child is crying and I need to comfort them and get them the help they need. Or there’s a problem between two students that I need to work with. There’s just not enough time.”

Many wonder: How deep is the damage?

Learning lost

At the start of the pandemic, experts predicted that students forced into remote school would pay an academic price. They were right.

“The learning losses have been significant thus far and frankly I’m worried that we haven’t stopped sinking,” said Dan Goldhaber, an education researcher at the American Institutes for Research.

Some of the best data come from the nationally administered assessment called i-Ready, which tests students three times a year in reading and math, allowing researchers to compare performance of millions of students against what would be expected absent the pandemic. It found significant declines, especially among the youngest students and particularly in math.

The low point was fall 2020, when all students were coming off a spring of chaotic, universal remote classes. By fall 2021 there were some improvements, but even then, academic performance remained below historic norms.

Take third grade, a pivotal year for learning and one that predicts success going forward. In fall 2021, 38 percent of third-graders were below grade level in reading, compared with 31 percent historically. In math, 39 percent of students were below grade level, vs. 29 percent historically.

Damage was most severe for students from the lowest-income families, who were already performing at lower levels.

A McKinsey & Co. study found schools with majority-Black populations were five months behind pre-pandemic levels, compared with majority-White schools, which were two months behind. Emma Dorn, a researcher at McKinsey, describes a “K-shaped” recovery, where kids from wealthier families are rebounding and those in low-income homes continue to decline.

“Some students are recovering and doing just fine. Other people are not,” she said. “I’m particularly worried there may be a whole cohort of students who are disengaged altogether from the education system.”

A hunt for teachers, and bus drivers

Schools, short-staffed on a good day, had little margin for error as the omicron variant of the coronavirus swept over the country this winter and sidelined many teachers. With a severe shortage of substitutes, teachers had to cover other classes during their planning periods, pushing prep work to the evenings. San Francisco schools were so strapped that the superintendent returned to the classroom on four days this school year to cover middle school math and science classes. Classes were sometimes left unmonitored or combined with others into large groups of unglorified study halls.

“The pandemic made an already dire reality even more devastating,” said Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, referring to the shortages.

In 2016, there were 1.06 people hired for every job listing. That figure has steadily dropped, reaching 0.59 hires for each opening last year, Bureau of Labor Statistics data show. In 2013, there were 557,320 substitute teachers, the BLS reported. In 2020, the number had fallen to 415,510. Virtually every district cites a need for more subs.

It’s led to burnout as teachers try to fill in the gaps.

“The overall feelings of teachers right now are ones of just being exhausted, beaten down and defeated, and just out of gas. Expectations have been piled on educators, even before the pandemic, but nothing is ever removed,” said Jennifer Schlicht, a high school teacher in Olathe, Kan., outside Kansas City.

Research shows the gaps in the number of available educators are most acute in areas including special education and educators who teach English language learners, as well as substitutes. And all school year, districts have been short on bus drivers , who have been doubling up routes, and forcing late school starts and sometimes cancellations for lack of transportation.

Many educators predict that fed-up teachers will probably quit, exacerbating the problem. And they say political attacks add to the burnout. Teachers are under scrutiny over lesson plans, and critics have gone after teachers unions, which for much of the pandemic demanded remote learning.

“It’s just created an environment that people don’t want to be part of anymore,” said Daniel A. Domenech, executive director of AASA, The School Superintendents Association. “People want to take care of kids, not to be accused and punished and criticized.”

Falling enrollment

Traditional public schools educate the vast majority of American children, but enrollment has fallen, a worrisome trend that could have lasting repercussions. Enrollment in traditional public schools fell to less than 49.4 million students in fall 2020 , a 2.7 percent drop from a year earlier .

National data for the current school year is not yet available. But if the trend continues, that will mean less money for public schools as federal and state funding are both contingent on the number of students enrolled. For now, schools have an infusion of federal rescue money that must be spent by 2024.

Some students have shifted to private or charter schools. A rising number , especially Black families , opted for home schooling. And many young children who should have been enrolling in kindergarten delayed school altogether. The question has been: will these students come back?

Some may not. Preliminary data for 19 states compiled by Nat Malkus, of the American Enterprise Institute, found seven states where enrollment dropped in fall 2020 and then dropped even further in 2021. His data show 12 states that saw declines in 2020 but some rebounding in 2021 — though not one of them was back to 2019 enrollment levels.

Joshua Goodman, associate professor of education and economics at Boston University, studied enrollment in Michigan schools and found high-income, White families moved to private schools to get in-person school. Far more common, though, were lower-income Black families shifting to home schooling or other remote options because they were uncomfortable with the health risks of in person.

“Schools were damned if they did, and damned if they didn’t,” Goodman said.

At the same time, charter schools, which are privately run but publicly funded, saw enrollment increase by 7 percent, or nearly 240,000 students, according to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. There’s also been a surge in home schooling. Private schools saw enrollment drop slightly in 2020-21 but then rebound this academic year, for a net growth of 1.7 percent over two years, according to the National Association of Independent Schools, which represents 1,600 U.S. schools.

Absenteeism on the rise

Even if students are enrolled, they won’t get much schooling if they don’t show up.

Last school year, the number of students who were chronically absent — meaning they have missed more than 10 percent of school days — nearly doubled from before the pandemic, according to data from a variety of states and districts studied by EveryDay Labs, a company that works with districts to improve attendance.

This school year, the numbers got even worse.

In Connecticut, for instance, the number of chronically absent students soared from 12 percent in 2019-20 to 20 percent the next year to 24 percent this year, said Emily Bailard, chief executive of the company. In Oakland, Calif., they went from 17.3 percent pre-pandemic to 19.8 percent last school year to 43 percent this year. In Pittsburgh, chronic absences stayed where they were last school year at about 25 percent, then shot up to 45 percent this year.

“We all expected that this year would look much better,” Bailard said. One explanation for the rise may be that schools did not keep careful track of remote attendance last year and the numbers understated the absences then, she said.

The numbers were the worst for the most vulnerable students. This school year in Connecticut, for instance, 24 percent of all students were chronically absent, but the figure topped 30 percent for English-learners, students with disabilities and those poor enough to qualify for free lunch. Among students experiencing homelessness, 56 percent were chronically absent.

Fights and guns

Schools are open for in-person learning almost everywhere, but students returned emotionally unsettled and unable to conform to normally accepted behavior. At its most benign, teachers are seeing kids who cannot focus in class, can’t stop looking at their phones, and can’t figure out how to interact with other students in all the normal ways. Many teachers say they seem younger than normal.

Amy Johnson, a veteran teacher in rural Randolph, Vt., said her fifth-graders had so much trouble being together that the school brought in a behavioral specialist to work with them three hours each week.

“My students are not acclimated to being in the same room together,” she said. “They don’t listen to each other. They cannot interact with each other in productive ways. When I’m teaching I might have three or five kids yelling at me all at the same time.”

That loss of interpersonal skills has also led to more fighting in hallways and after school. Teachers and principals say many incidents escalate from small disputes because students lack the habit of remaining calm. Many say the social isolation wrought during remote school left them with lower capacity to manage human conflict.

Just last week, a high-schooler in Los Angeles was accused of stabbing another student in a school hallway, police on the big island of Hawaii arrested seven students after an argument escalated into a fight, and a Baltimore County, Md., school resource officer was injured after intervening in a fight during the transition between classes.

There’s also been a steep rise in gun violence. In 2021, there were at least 42 acts of gun violence on K-12 campuses during regular hours, the most during any year since at least 1999, according to a Washington Post database . The most striking of 2021 incidents was the shooting in Oxford, Mich., that killed four. There have been already at least three shootings in 2022.

Back to school has brought guns, fighting and acting out

The Center for Homeland Defense and Security, which maintains its own database of K-12 school shootings using a different methodology, totaled nine active shooter incidents in schools in 2021, in addition to 240 other incidents of gunfire on school grounds. So far in 2022, it has recorded 12 incidents. The previous high, in 2019, was 119 total incidents.

David Riedman, lead researcher on the K-12 School Shooting Database, points to four shootings on Jan. 19 alone, including at Anacostia High School in D.C., where gunshots struck the front door of the school as a teen sprinted onto the campus, fleeing a gunman.

Seeing opportunity

Fueling the pressure on public schools is an ascendant school-choice movement that promotes taxpayer subsidies for students to attend private and religious schools, as well as publicly funded charter schools, which are privately run. Advocates of these programs have seen the public system’s woes as an excellent opportunity to push their priorities.

EdChoice, a group that promotes these programs, tallies seven states that created new school choice programs last year. Some are voucher-type programs where students take some of their tax dollars with them to private schools. Others offer tax credits for donating to nonprofit organizations, which give scholarships for school expenses. Another 15 states expanded existing programs, EdChoice says.

The troubles traditional schools have had managing the pandemic has been key to the lobbying, said Michael McShane, director of national research for EdChoice. “That is absolutely an argument that school choice advocates make, for sure.”

If those new programs wind up moving more students from public to private systems, that could further weaken traditional schools, even as they continue to educate the vast majority of students.

Kevin G. Welner, director of the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado, who opposes school choice programs, sees the surge of interest as the culmination of years of work to undermine public education. He is both impressed by the organization and horrified by the results.

“I wish that organizations supporting public education had the level of funding and coordination that I’ve seen in these groups dedicated to its privatization,” he said.

A final complication: Politics

Rarely has education been such a polarizing political topic.

Republicans, fresh off Glenn Youngkin’s victory in the Virginia governor’s race, have concluded that key to victory is a push for parental control and “parents rights.” That’s a nod to two separate topics.

First, they are capitalizing on parent frustrations over pandemic policies, including school closures and mandatory mask policies. The mask debate, which raged at the start of the school year, got new life this month after Youngkin ordered Virginia schools to allow students to attend without face coverings.

The notion of parental control also extends to race, and objections over how American history is taught. Many Republicans also object to school districts’ work aimed at racial equity in their systems, a basket of policies they have dubbed critical race theory. Critics have balked at changes in admissions to elite school in the name of racial diversity, as was done in Fairfax, Va. , and San Francisco ; discussion of White privilege in class ; and use of the New York Times’s “1619 Project,” which suggests slavery and racism are at the core of American history.

“Everything has been politicized,” said Domenech, of AASA. “You’re beside yourself saying, ‘How did we ever get to this point?’”

Part of the challenge going forward is that the pandemic is not over. Each time it seems to be easing, it returns with a variant vengeance, forcing schools to make politically and educationally sensitive decisions about the balance between safety and normalcy all over again.

At the same time, many of the problems facing public schools feed on one another. Students who are absent will probably fall behind in learning, and those who fall behind are likely to act out.

A similar backlash exists regarding race. For years, schools have been under pressure to address racism in their systems and to teach it in their curriculums, pressure that intensified after the murder of George Floyd in 2020. Many districts responded, and that opened them up to countervailing pressures from those who find schools overly focused on race.

Some high-profile boosters of public education are optimistic that schools can move past this moment. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona last week promised, “It will get better.” Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said, “If we can rebuild community-education relations, if we can rebuild trust, public education will not only survive but has a real chance to thrive.”

But the path back is steep, and if history is a guide, the wealthiest schools will come through reasonably well, while those serving low-income communities will struggle. Steve Matthews, superintendent of the 6,900-student Novi Community School District in Michigan, just northwest of Detroit, said his district will probably face a tougher road back than wealthier nearby districts that are, for instance, able to pay teachers more.

“Resource issues. Trust issues. De-professionalization of teaching is making it harder to recruit teachers,” he said. “A big part of me believes schools are in a long-term crisis.”

Valerie Strauss contributed to this report.

The pandemic’s impact on education

The latest: Updated coronavirus booster shots are now available for children as young as 5 . To date, more than 10.5 million children have lost one or both parents or caregivers during the coronavirus pandemic.

In the classroom: Amid a teacher shortage, states desperate to fill teaching jobs have relaxed job requirements as staffing crises rise in many schools . American students’ test scores have even plummeted to levels unseen for decades. One D.C. school is using COVID relief funds to target students on the verge of failure .

Higher education: College and university enrollment is nowhere near pandemic level, experts worry. ACT and SAT testing have rebounded modestly since the massive disruptions early in the coronavirus pandemic, and many colleges are also easing mask rules .

DMV news: Most of Prince George’s students are scoring below grade level on district tests. D.C. Public School’s new reading curriculum is designed to help improve literacy among the city’s youngest readers.

Global education trends and research to follow in 2022

Subscribe to the center for universal education bulletin, emily gustafsson-wright , emily gustafsson-wright senior fellow - global economy and development , center for universal education @egwbrookings helen shwe hadani , helen shwe hadani former brookings expert @helenshadani kathy hirsh-pasek , kathy hirsh-pasek senior fellow - global economy and development , center for universal education @kathyandro1 maysa jalbout , maysa jalbout nonresident fellow - global economy and development , center for universal education @maysajalbout elizabeth m. king , elizabeth m. king nonresident senior fellow - global economy and development , center for universal education jennifer l. o’donoghue , jennifer l. o’donoghue deputy director - center for universal education , senior fellow - global economy and development @jennodjod brad olsen , brad olsen senior fellow - global economy and development , center for universal education @bradolsen_dc jordan shapiro , jordan shapiro nonresident fellow - global economy and development , center for universal education @jordosh emiliana vegas , and emiliana vegas former co-director - center for universal education , former senior fellow - global economy and development @emivegasv rebecca winthrop rebecca winthrop director - center for universal education , senior fellow - global economy and development @rebeccawinthrop.

January 24, 2022

• 12 min read

As the third calendar year of the pandemic begins, 2022 promises to be an important one—especially for education. Around the world, education systems have had to contend with sporadic closures, inequitable access to education technology and other distance learning tools, and deep challenges in maintaining both students’ and teachers’ physical and emotional health. At the same time, not all of the sudden changes precipitated by the pandemic have been bad—with some promising new innovations, allies, and increased attention on the field of global education emerging over the past three years. The key question is whether 2022 and the years ahead will lead to education transformation or will students, teachers, and families suffer long-lasting setbacks?

In the Center for Universal Education, our scholars take stock of the trends, policies, practices, and research that they’ll be closely keeping an eye on this year and likely in the many to come.

More than ever, in 2022 it will be critical to focus on strengthening the fabric of our global education system in order to achieve positive outcomes—particularly through an increased focus on data-informed decisionmaking. We have seen a renewed focus on different forms of data that are critical to enhanced education outcomes, such as real-time performance data, which allow teachers and other decisionmakers to course-adjust to the needs of learners to better support their educational journeys. Additionally, high-quality program cost data are needed for decisionmakers to plan, budget, and choose the most cost-effective interventions.

One way we are seeing these areas strengthened is through innovative financing for education, such as impact bonds , which require data to operate at full potential. This year, pooled funding through outcomes funds—a scaled version of impact bonds—should make a particularly big splash. The Education Outcomes Fund organization is slated to launch programs in Ghana and Sierra Leone, and we also expect to see the launch of country-specific outcomes funds for education such as OFFER (Outcome Fund For Education Results) in Colombia, the Back-to-School Outcomes Fund in India, and another fund in Chile. At the Center for Universal Education, we will be following these innovations closely and look forward to the insights that they will bring to the education sector.

As we look ahead to 2022, one continued challenge for many families is navigating the uncharted territory of supporting children’s learning with a growing number of school closures . But while the pandemic forced an abrupt slowdown in modern life, it also provided an opportunity to reexamine how we can prioritize learning and healthy development both in and out of school. Moreover, the cascading effects of the pandemic are disproportionally affecting families living in communities challenged by decades of discrimination and disinvestment—and are very likely to widen already existing educational inequities in worrisome ways.

One innovative approach to providing enriching learning opportunities beyond school walls that address the inequities in our current systems is Playful Learning Landscapes (PLL) —installations and programming that promote children and families’ learning through play in the public realm. A current focus for PLL at Brookings is measuring the impact of these spaces to show that PLL works and to garner greater investment in them. To that end, Brookings and its partners developed a framework and an initial set of indicators from both the learning science and placemaking perspectives to help assess the positive effects of PLL on learning outcomes , as well as its potential to enhance social interaction and public life in revitalized spaces. The framework will continue to evolve as we learn from communities that are testing the expansion and adaptation of PLL—this important work is just beginning.

The pandemic highlighted several trends in education that promise to be the focus of future policy and practice in 2022 and beyond: the importance of skills that supplement the learning of content, systemic inequities in education systems, and the role of digital technology in the education of the future. It has become increasingly clear that the memorization of content alone will not prepare children for the jobs and society of the future. As noted in a Brookings report “ A new path for education reform, ” in an automated world, manufacturing jobs and even preliminary medical diagnoses or legal contracts can be performed by computers and robots. Students who can work collaboratively—with strong communication skills, critical thinking, and creative innovation—will be highly valued. Mission statements from around the globe are starting to promote a “whole child” approach to education that will encourage the learning of a breadth of skills better aligning the education sector with needs from the business sector.

The past year also demonstrated weaknesses and inequalities inherent in remote learning that I’ll be closely tracking in the years to come. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggested that virtual learning presents risks to social-emotional learning . Further, research suggests that academic progress during the pandemic slowed such that students demonstrated only 35 to 50 percent of the gains they normally achieve in mathematics and 60 to 68 percent in reading. The losses are not experienced uniformly , with children from underresourced environments falling behind their more resourced peers.

The failure of remote learning also raises questions about the place of digital learning in the classroom. Learning will become more and more hybrid over time, and keeping an eye on advances in technology—especially regarding augmented reality and the metaverse—will be particularly important, as both have real consequences for the classrooms.

In 2022, I’ll be focusing on one group of children in particular–refugees–who are among those children who have historically had the least access to preprimary education. The pandemic has affected them disproportionally , as it pushed them and their families into poverty and deprived them from most forms of education during the school closures.

While much more investment in early childhood education research and evaluation is needed to improve evidence and channel scarce resources effectively, there are a few important efforts to watch. A report commissioned by Theirworld last year provided an overview of the sector and focused on a critical gap and opportunity to address the inequity of access to early childhood education in refugee settings by better supporting teachers and community workers. This year, Theirworld and partners will pursue two of the report’s recommendations–making the science of early childhood brain development widely accessible in refugee communities and building the evidence base on what works in supporting early childhood education teachers and the young refugee children they teach.

The report was informed by existing initiatives including Ahlan Simsim, which in 2017 received the largest known grant to early education in a humanitarian context. While the evaluation of Ahlan Simsim will not be complete until two more years, the Global Ties for Children research center, Sesame Workshop, and the International Rescue Committee will share critical insights into their learning to date in a forthcoming episode of the podcast the Impact Room .

This coming year I’ll be focused on how education systems can prepare for future disruptions, whatever the cause, with more deliberateness. The past two years of the COVID pandemic have seen education systems throughout the globe struggle to find ways to continue schooling. Additionally, there have been other public health crises, natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, and severe storms, and wars and terrorism in different parts of the world that have gravely tested school systems’ ability to minimize the cost of catastrophes on students and teachers. Finding safer temporary learning places outside the school and using technologies such as radio, TV broadcasts, and online learning tools have helped, but quick fixes with little preparation are not effective approaches for sustaining and advancing learning gains.

In the age of broadcast and digital technologies, there are many more ways to meet the challenges of future emergency situations, but life- and education-saving solutions must be part of the way school systems operate—built into their structures, their staffing, their budgets, and their curricula. By preparing for the emergencies that are likely to happen, we can persevere to reach learning goals for all children.

By the close of 2021, a number of studies began to document the impact of COVID-19 on girls’ educational trajectories across the Global South. These studies point to promising trends –lower than expected dropout rates and reenrollment rates similar to (if not greater than) those of boys–while still highlighting the particular challenges faced by adolescent girls and girls living in poverty , conflict, and crisis .

In 2022, it will be critical to continue to generate more nuanced evidence—carefully considering questions such as “for which girls,” “where,” “when,” and “why.” And then we must put this knowledge to use to protect and promote girls’ and young women’s rights not just to education, but to participate and thrive in the world around them. Ensuring that marginalized girls and young women become transformative agents in improving their lives and livelihoods—as well as those of their families and communities—requires us to develop new strategies for learning and acting together.

At the Center for Universal Education, this means strengthening our work with local leaders in girls’ education: promoting gender-transformative research through the Echidna Global Scholars Program ; expanding the collective impact of our 33 Echidna alumni; and co-constructing a learning and action community to explore together how to improve beliefs, practices, programs, and policies so that marginalized adolescent girls’ can develop and exercise agency in pursuing their own pathways.

Going into year three of COVID-19, in 2022 I’m interested to see whether countries will transform their education systems or largely leave them the way they are. Will leaders of education systems tinker around the edges of change but mostly attempt a return to a prepandemic “normal,” or will they take advantage of this global rupture in the status quo to replace antiquated educational institutions and approaches with significant structural improvement?

In relation to this, one topic I’ll be watching in particular is how countries treat their teachers. How will policymakers, the media, parent councils, and others frame teachers’ work in 2022? In which locations will teachers be diminished versus where will they be defended as invaluable assets? How will countries learn from implications of out-of-school children (including social isolation and child care needs)? Will teachers remain appreciated in their communities but treated poorly in the material and political conditions of their work? Or will countries hold them dear—demanding accountability while supporting and rewarding them for quality work?

I’m interested in learning more about how pandemic lockdowns have impacted students. So far, we’ve only gotten very general data dealing with questions that are, in my opinion, too simple to be worthwhile. It’s all been about good and bad, positive and negative, learning loss and achievement. But I’ll be watching for more nuanced studies, which ask about specific ways increased time away from school has impacted social-emotional development. How do those results differ between gender, race, socioeconomic status, and geographic location? I suspect we’re going to learn some things about the relationship between home environment and school environment that will challenge a lot of our taken-for-granted assumptions.

In 2022, I’ll be tracking emerging evidence on the impact of the COVID-19 school closures on children and youth. Several researchers, including my co-authors and me , have provided estimates of the school closures’ impact on student learning losses, unemployment, future earnings, and productivity globally. But only recently are researchers analyzing actual evidence of learning losses , and an early systematic review finds that “Although robust and empirical research on COVID-19-related student learning loss is limited, learning loss itself may not be.”

Likewise, there is little rigorous reviews of remote learning tools’ and platforms’ impact on student learning during the school closures. After the pandemic, it is almost certain that remote and hybrid learning will continue—at a minimum occasionally and often periodically—in primary, secondary, and post-secondary education. It is urgent that we build the evidence base to help education decisionmakers and practitioners provide effective, tailored learning experiences for all students.

Finally, a key issue for education is how to redesign curricula so that this generation (and future generations) of students gain a key set of skills and competencies required for technologically-advancing labor markets and societies. While foundational literacy and numeracy skills continue to be essential for learning, a strong foundational knowledge of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics is ever more important in the 21st century, and I look forward to contributing research this year to help make the case for curricula redesign efforts.

I will be interested to see how parent-teacher relationships progress after the pandemic has (hopefully) faded into the background. COVID-19 has had an inescapable impact on the way we deliver education globally, but none more so than on how education leaders and teachers interact with students and their families.

For the past three years, I have been studying family-school collaboration. Together with my colleagues and partners, we have surveyed nearly 25,000 parents and 6,000 teachers in 10 countries around the world and found that the vast majority of teachers, parents, and caregivers want to work together more closely. Quality family-school collaboration has the potential to significantly improve educational outcomes, spur important discussions on the overall purpose of school, and smooth the path for schools and families to navigate change together. From community schools in New Mexico  to text message updates from teachers in India , new innovations are popping up every day—in every corner of the world. I’m excited to see what the future holds for family-school collaboration!

Education Technology Global Education

Global Economy and Development

Center for Universal Education

The Brookings Institution, Washington DC

8:30 am - 4:30 pm EDT

Thinley Choden

May 3, 2024

Ghulam Omar Qargha, Rachel Dyl, Sreehari Ravindranath, Nariman Moustafa, Erika Faz de la Paz

The big issues set to dominate education in 2022

The year is finishing with a horrible sense of déjà vu, with schools once again having to pull out the plans for closure and online teaching .

It is impossible to know quite how bad the Omicron wave of Covid-19 is going to be but it’s hard to see how the start of next term won’t be seriously disrupted with significant pupil and staff absences.

The only positive is this wave is likely to be quick and hopefully has little chance of prolonged school closures until March, as we saw this year.

Ministers are also desperate to avoid another year with no standardised exams, so I would expect them to go ahead unless we’re in a worst-case scenario.

The year ahead

It’s difficult to focus on anything else when the Covid news is this grim, but this wave will pass and it is worth considering what else 2022 has in store for those working in education.

After years dominated by Brexit and then the pandemic, the Department for Education is planning a major blitz of policy announcements in the spring that could set the direction for the system for some time to come.

First up - we’re promised by Easter - is the long-awaited SEND review that was initially due to be published in 2019. The delays are not surprising given the extent of the challenge.

There are now almost twice as many pupils on education, health and care plans ( EHCPs) as there were on Statements in 2014, and that is with local authorities significantly suppressing demand by refusing plans that they should be agreeing to (95 per cent of cases that go to tribunal are won by parents).

This rate of growth is not financially sustainable so I’d expect the DfE to be exploring mechanisms to provide some support to schools for pupils who have less severe s pecial educational needs or disabilities that is not as extensive as an EHCP.

One way or another a significant overhaul is needed, tweaking things at the margins won’t help.

The new White Paper

Then, possibly in May, we’re expecting the first schools’ White Paper since 2016. These tend to form the basis of new legislation and are supposed to set a broad direction for the system - something that is sorely needed.

The focus is likely to be on standards and school improvement, with (hopefully) a more coherent approach to curriculum support and accountability. Perhaps the most important question, though, is how ministers choose to tackle the issues surrounding academisation and structural reform.

Half of all schools and 80 per cent of secondaries are now academies.

Most are in a multi-academy trust (MAT) - the average size of which has slowly grown year on year.

Local authorities are increasingly unviable, and underfunded, and yet the majority of primaries are still maintained by them.

The DfE will likely reassert their ambition to have all schools in a MAT eventually, but the bigger question is how do we ensure such a system will be successful?

At the moment there are no clear expectations on MATs and they are not held accountable to any educational standard.

This will need to change if they are to become our primary method of school improvement.

And if local authorities are going to continue to be held responsible for supporting the most vulnerable young people, such as those who are at risk of abuse or have been excluded from mainstream education, they need to be given the powers and resources to do so properly.

Exam issues ahead

Beyond these big set-piece policy announcements, some other issues will likely need a serious response from the DfE.

Assuming exams do go ahead in the summer, we are guaranteed the first ever substantial year-on-year drop in results, especially for A levels. It is hard to tell what the reaction to this will be, but it seems likely to add to the pressure for wider assessment reform.

A number of high profile independent commissions will report during the year, recommending substantial changes to GCSEs and A levels.

Ministers are not supportive at the moment, but it will get harder for them to say nothing on the topic.

Recruitment woes 

We are also likely to see a substantial drop in teacher recruitment next year as the UK labour market continues to show record levels of employment, with wages rising higher than those in teaching.

This is likely to start hitting schools harder in the autumn of 2022 and there will be pressure for the department to increase bursaries and other incentives to join the profession.

We may see similar pressure around senior leadership roles as the difficulties of the past few years take their toll on headteachers.

We can only pray that the end of next year feels a lot more positive than this one and that we have finally found a way to get on top of the pandemic.

Similarly, we have to hope the new DfE team can set a clear direction for schools and then give them the space to deliver. 

Sam Freedman is a former senior policy adviser at the Department for Education and a senior fellow at the Institute of Government

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• Education, training and skills
• Inspections and performance of education providers
• Inspection and performance of schools

Education recovery in schools: spring 2022

Published 4 April 2022

Applies to England

© Crown copyright 2022

This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: [email protected] .

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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/education-recovery-in-schools-spring-2022/education-recovery-in-schools-spring-2022

The picture overall

In December 2021, we published a briefing on the continued effects of the pandemic and education recovery in schools . The effects of the pandemic on pupils, staff and leaders were evident. It was clear that many schools were working hard to respond to these challenges, including helping pupils to catch up academically.

In this briefing, we draw on evidence from a sample of inspections and from discussions with school inspectors to understand how schools are responding to the ongoing challenges of the pandemic. It is promising that leaders were noticing improvements in pupils’ learning, well-being and behaviour this term. We also saw how schools were using effective strategies to check what pupils have learned and to appropriately adapt the curriculum to meet their needs.

However, the pandemic continued to hinder pupils’ learning and personal development. In January 2022, many schools said that COVID-19 had reduced pupils’ attendance. This was a particular challenge for special schools. Leaders also continued to mention the negative impact of the pandemic on pupils’ well-being and behaviour. This term, more leaders have noticed improvements in these areas. But many also reported that pupils in Reception needed more support to develop social skills such as taking turns and listening.

The pandemic has also continued to affect pupils’ knowledge and skills, either because content had not been taught when schools were partially closed or because pupils did not learn well remotely. The leaders that we spoke to this term were identifying similar issues to those reported in autumn , including knowledge gaps in phonics, mathematics and writing stamina. Some schools also reported a decline in pupils taking certain subjects for GCSE and A level, including triple science and English Baccalaureate subjects.

Schools were using a range of informal assessment practices to identify what knowledge pupils have (and have not) remembered from their teaching during lockdowns. Assessment practices were more effective in schools where staff had a strong vision and clear intent for their curriculum. This meant that they were clear what knowledge needed to be assessed. We saw less effective practice when leaders were assuming pupils had gaps in knowledge but were not identifying what specific knowledge was missing; when they were focusing disproportionately on core subjects; and when they were using standardised, high-level assessments that did not check that pupils have learned what has been taught.

Some schools were using information from assessment to adapt their curriculum. Adaptations this term were similar to those in autumn. Schools were dedicating time to revisiting concepts that pupils had not learned well remotely, and leaders were adapting their curriculum to prioritise knowledge that was crucial for pupils to move forward.

Assessment and curriculum adaptations will vary by subject. In subjects where knowledge is taught in a sequence, such as phonics, the adaptations help ensure that pupils learn crucial knowledge needed to progress. In other subjects, like history, progression may not rely so heavily on previous knowledge. [footnote 1]

Schools were also using assessment to identify individuals or groups of pupils who needed additional support, such as one-to-one interventions. Some were using tutoring to help pupils catch up. Most schools chose to use the school-led route offered by the National Tutoring Programme and trained their own staff internally or across academy trusts in tutoring.

In the spring term, staff absence due to COVID-19 had been an issue and was made more difficult by the challenge of recruiting supply teachers. This has increased the staff workload. Around a quarter of planned school inspections before the spring half term were deferred, predominantly due to staffing issues related to COVID-19.

Schools have faced external barriers, such as delays accessing external services, particularly in relation to mental health. Special schools have been especially challenged by this as they rely on a lot of services from external agencies. However, many leaders have also had support from academy trusts and local authorities.

Methodological note

In this briefing, we draw on evidence collected during routine inspections and through focus group discussions with school inspectors. We use this to illustrate:

• how the pandemic continues to impact on pupils’ learning and personal development
• how schools are finding out what pupils do and do not know
• effective approaches that schools are using to help pupils catch up

We used evidence gathered from routine inspections of 43 primary schools, 48 secondary schools and 14 special schools in England between 22 November 2021 and 28 January 2022.

We held focus group discussions with 23 Ofsted colleagues: 17 His Majesty’s Inspectors ( HMI ) and 6 Senior HMI . Participants in focus group discussions had personal experience of inspecting schools in the 2021/22 academic year and/or had overseen the work of HMI in their region. They had a range of inspection experience including primary, secondary and special schools. There was representation from all 8 Ofsted regions .

The data collected cannot be assumed to be representative of the whole sector. During January, there were fewer school inspections than usual, which reduced the amount of evidence we could draw on. A small number of inspectors participated in the research, meaning that their observations are not conclusive. They do, however, help to triangulate and enrich findings from the inspection evidence.

Our overall findings in this briefing illustrate the challenges that some schools are experiencing and the approaches they are taking.

The current state of children’s education and personal development

Ongoing covid-related absence.

During January 2022, the pandemic continued to reduce pupils’ attendance in many schools. Data from the Department for Education ( DfE ) shows an increase in pupils not attending school for COVID-related reasons during January, but this reduced before the spring half term. [footnote 2] During January, we saw a larger proportion of pupils being absent during inspections than during the autumn term. In some schools, this was a few pupils; in others, many pupils were off with COVID-19. Some leaders of special schools said that attendance had been a challenge for them, particularly among pupils with complex health needs.

COVID-related anxiety among parents continued to be a challenge for some school leaders this term. Some parents were not sending their children to school because of their concerns. Anxiety around COVID-19 was thought to be higher among certain communities, including Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities.

A few schools faced challenges from parents about pupils’ attendance. There was push-back from some parents when schools communicated high expectations and the importance of attendance. We recently published a short report on schools’ approaches to improving and maintaining attendance .

Some schools also talked about their contingency plans for online learning in case of further lockdowns or to accommodate high levels of absence. However, compared with the national lockdowns, fewer schools were offering comprehensive remote learning for small numbers of pupils who were not at school.

Knowledge and skills

Our December briefing reported that pupils’ subject-specific knowledge and skills continued to be affected by the pandemic. This was either because content had not been taught when schools were partially closed or because pupils did not learn well remotely. In January 2022, school leaders described similar gaps in:

• mathematics
• writing stamina and handwriting
• languages, particularly in pupils’ speaking and listening skills
• physical education ( PE )

Leaders tended to mention subjects where the knowledge that was missing was essential for pupils to progress in the subject. This does not mean that other subjects, such as geography and history, have not been impacted. However, the knowledge gaps in these subjects may not be as critical for pupils’ progression. [footnote 3]

Many leaders highlighted their concerns about the Reception Year cohort, particularly in relation to children’s weaker speech and language development. Similar to in the autumn term, they also identified pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities ( SEND ) and disadvantaged pupils as being hardest hit by the pandemic.

Compared with last term, more leaders said that pupils’ gaps in knowledge and skills were closing or had closed in some subjects, and that pupils were ‘where they should be’. They attributed this to providing effective remote learning during lockdowns, which meant gaps in knowledge were small, and/or to having successful strategies in place to help pupils catch up. On inspection, we have also seen pupils recovering skills and knowledge that teachers said had been affected by lockdowns. For instance, we have seen strong progression in pupils’ writing since the start of this academic year.

In some schools, pupils’ knowledge gaps were not solely attributable to missed teaching or pupils not learning well remotely during lockdowns. Other factors such as previous teaching, a previous curriculum or non-COVID-related staff absence had played a part.

Some schools said that the pandemic has influenced pupils’ subject choices at GCSE and A level. For example, a few schools reported decreases in pupils opting for triple science and others had noted declines in the number of pupils taking English Baccalaureate subjects. One leader thought that the latter was due to pupils’ lower level of confidence in languages following lockdowns.

Mental health and well-being

Many leaders said that the pandemic has had a negative impact on some pupils’ mental health and emotional well-being. As reported in our December briefing, they continued to have concerns about pupils having lower resilience and confidence and greater anxiety. For some pupils, the impact of the pandemic had been most noticeable when they first went back to school, but others were still experiencing poorer well-being in the spring term. In some schools, safeguarding concerns and disclosures had increased. These school leaders spoke about more concerns relating to domestic abuse.

Schools were supporting pupils’ mental health and well-being in several ways. A common approach was to increase the focus on mental health in the curriculum for all pupils, often through personal, social and health education. Schools were also providing therapeutic interventions for individual pupils, often by either training their own staff or employing staff with therapeutic qualifications. Some schools were adding these roles to their pastoral teams because it has been difficult to access external services, which often had long waiting times.

A few school leaders said that they had already seen that their approaches were successful. In one primary school, parents had spoken positively about a programme for those needing additional emotional support. In the spring term, a few leaders were optimistic that pupils’ well-being was ‘improving’ and ‘getting back to normal’.

Opportunities for pupils to take part in enrichment activities, such as clubs and trips, continued to vary between schools this term. Most schools were offering some activities, and a few were back to their full programme. A few schools seemed to find trips more challenging to organise compared with clubs on school premises and talks from external speakers. For example, one school had found that some parents were not comfortable with their child going out of school. On occasion, enrichment activities were hindered by staff absence.

Pupils’ behaviour

Many more leaders this term said that poor behaviour following lockdowns had been addressed, or that they had seen improvements. Since September 2021, leaders had spent time re-establishing boundaries and communicating behavioural expectations to pupils. Staff were often modelling positive behaviours to develop the youngest pupils’ understanding of sharing and listening skills. In a few schools, staff said that staggered lunch times, originally set up as a COVID-19 safety precaution, were still in place. They found that these had a positive effect on pupils’ behaviour because they limited the number of pupils in an area at one time, which helped to create a ‘calm atmosphere’.

However, some schools were finding that behaviour continued to be a challenge in January 2022. Leaders said that pupils’ level of engagement and ability to stay on task continued to be worse than pre-pandemic. Several leaders mentioned that children in Reception were not as used to sharing and taking turns, and more work was needed to develop their listening skills. This was thought to be because pupils had had fewer pre-school social experiences. The early years briefing gives further detail.

Identifying gaps in learning

Assessment practices.

Pandemic disruption resulted in gaps in many pupils’ learning, either because content had not been taught during lockdowns or because pupils did not learn well remotely. Schools were using assessment to understand what pupils have (and have not) remembered. This information helped leaders and teachers to adapt the curriculum appropriately so that pupils had the secure base they needed to access new content. In addition, most leaders were using assessment information to identify and target pupils who needed additional support to catch up.

A few leaders also referred to the importance of assessment information, both formative and summative, in monitoring successes. For example, where curriculum adaptations were having an impact, gaps in learning were closing and pupils were back on track so that the curriculum could continue as originally planned.

Assessment can take many forms. Inspection evidence showed that most teachers were continuing to use established informal assessment practices to understand pupils’ enduring gaps in learning. Following initial assessments when pupils returned to school after lockdown, many teachers were extracting diagnostic information from assessments routinely built into the curriculum to reinforce pupils’ learning and retention, such as:

• regular knowledge retrieval activities
• targeted questioning
• low-stakes quizzes
• revision tasks to carry out their prior learning checks

Some leaders had done baseline assessments and repeated these at intervals to monitor how well their adapted curriculum was filling the gaps and enabling pupils to catch up. This was prevalent in mathematics.

A few schools, primary and secondary, reported that they had changed assessment practices due to the impact of the pandemic, paying greater attention to formative assessment. Leaders in these schools said they were now ‘tightening up’ their assessment processes to focus on the gaps. Examples of changes they had made include:

• checking prior learning more carefully before moving to new units
• looking more closely at the key objectives to ensure more precise assessment
• reviewing routinely what pupils had learned in previous years, not just in recent units
• focusing on identifying pupils who require bespoke support
• introducing informal assessment in a broader range of subjects
• providing more feedback to pupils
• using more peer- and self-assessment

We also found that some leaders were purchasing new assessment packages, for example Year 7 baseline tests, and that activities at the start of lessons to check learning were taking longer as teachers checked for a wider range of gaps.

Facilitating effective assessment practices to identify gaps in learning

Teachers were using their normal practices to identify gaps. Understanding what makes assessment effective for identifying gaps, and therefore helping pupils catch up, is especially important in the context of education recovery. However, the findings may apply more widely than recovery from the pandemic. What is appropriate in terms of assessment will also vary by subject area. [footnote 4]

We have seen the importance of strong leadership for effective assessment. Strong leaders tended to have a clear strategic plan, including what essential knowledge teachers should focus assessment on. They were setting expectations for how assessment should inform curriculum adaptations. Similarly, some leaders referred to the importance of their oversight of assessment information and what it was telling them about pupils’ knowledge: what was still missing and how well gaps were being filled.

Having a well-informed understanding of the curriculum and strong subject knowledge helped schools use assessment effectively to identify gaps in pupils’ knowledge. When teachers were clear about the knowledge that pupils needed to learn, they understood what knowledge needed to be assessed. They also had a greater understanding of where pupils should be, so they were more able to identify knowledge that needed consolidation and could precisely match curriculum adaptations to pupils’ needs. For example, we often found mathematics was being assessed more effectively than other subjects. Many leaders knew the curriculum well and were clear about what pupils should know at each stage. Teachers were then able to benchmark pupils’ current learning against these expectations. In schools where leaders were less clear about curriculum content and end-points, assessment was used less effectively.

In the best examples of assessment practice, leaders were focused on checking that pupils were building secure knowledge necessary to progress by continually tracking, in-class, what they knew at different points. Effective assessment resulted in teachers using the information they gathered to inform their teaching and to fill gaps, allowing for a return to a more usual curriculum.

We found that some schools needed to do further work to use assessment productively to strengthen pupils’ knowledge. Others had not yet done enough assessment in some areas of the curriculum.

We also found that some primary schools were focusing assessment narrowly on the core curriculum and paying less attention to foundation subjects. This could be due to:

• a strategic focus on English and mathematics
• a lack of training for teachers resulting in weaker subject knowledge or confidence in assessing foundation subjects

Taking a narrow assessment focus and not checking what pupils know in foundation subjects may mean that schools have not yet clearly identified gaps in these areas. However, some leaders were aware of what content had been missed during remote learning, so assessment may not have been a priority.

In secondary schools, foundation subject teachers were assessing more clearly and understood what the learning gaps were. Their knowledge of the curriculum meant they were able to identify gaps.

We often had concerns with assessment practices when leaders had acknowledged that pupils had learning gaps but had not yet pinpointed the specific knowledge that was missing or weak. In some schools, leaders were ‘assuming but not assessing’ for gaps. However, appropriate assessment varies by subject and, in some areas, it may not be critical to identify gaps for pupils’ progression. [footnote 5]

Some schools referred to using standardised testing. A few repeated these assessments at intervals to monitor progress. When schools relied on this type of assessment, specific gaps in learning were not identified as effectively or as quickly as they were in schools that took a more granular approach, checking precisely what knowledge was missing and what was secure. We found that when assessments provided scores, rather than identified gaps, it was unclear how the assessment supported the recovery of pupils’ learning. A few schools analysed pupils’ responses to individual questions to help identify gaps in learning and offer targeted support. However, we would be concerned about an over-reliance on standardised assessment. It may not check the taught curriculum and so may not be an accurate reflection of whether pupils are learning what the school intends.

Other schools with weak assessment practice had identified gaps in learning and pupils’ needs but this did not then lead to sufficient or timely curriculum adaptation. The pandemic appears to have amplified the impact of weak legacy assessment practices. Where assessment was already disjointed, inconsistent or overused summative tests, curriculum adaptations were less effective. However, some weaker schools had improved assessment practices in response to the need to identify learning gaps.

Preparing for national assessments

We found that there was a strong but understandable focus on assessing pupils in Years 11 and 13. The uncertainty over summer exams had led to some schools focusing significantly on collecting evidence of pupils’ attainment in case it was required by exam boards for teacher-assessed grades. Ofqual has now released more information on this, which has provided some clarity for schools. [footnote 6]

Schools were also preparing pupils for their first external exams. Inspection evidence showed that some teachers of Year 11 and Year 13 cohorts were focusing on exam preparation. They were using extra formal assessments and practice questions, targeted on gaps emerging from mock assessments. It was a challenge for teachers in these year groups as they filled gaps in learning alongside helping pupils get ready for exams. In some schools, assessment practices for these year groups had been adjusted to account for this. However, inspectors pointed out that the potential for pupils being ‘more weighed than fed’ and the focus on assessment could mean learning suffers as a result.

Catch-up strategies

Adaptations to the curriculum.

This term, many schools are continuing to adapt their curriculum. We saw a continuation of a lot of the practice that we reported in our December briefing. Leaders described how they would take time to fill gaps and ensure that key concepts were secure before continuing learning, and ‘not just plough on’.

Some schools are continuing to adapt their curriculum by:

• teaching what has been missed
• providing opportunities across the curriculum for a lot of repetition, retrieval and revision of previous learning
• focusing on the core subjects for their catch-up work (particularly phonics, reading and mathematics in primary schools)
• investing in additional resources to support catch-up (staff, programmes and classroom resources)
• providing interventions to support catch-up for targeted pupils and groups of pupils
• prioritising practical work in science and technology
• prioritising PE , extra-curricular activities and enrichment opportunities

Most leaders said they were using assessment information in some subjects to inform their curriculum adaptations and decide where to target support to help pupils catch up. Some leaders referred to frequent – often daily – assessment, which meant adaptations were responsive and quick. This was common in mathematics and phonics. Many leaders highlighted the importance of timely attention to pupils’ needs and adaptive teaching when gaps are identified. We have seen good practice in schools that were responding and adapting quickly.

In other subjects, leaders were aware of what content has been missed and used this information to adjust the curriculum. For example, one leader said that geography content that had not been taught remotely during lockdown was instead covered during this academic year in a related topic.

In addition to the continuing trends from last term, some schools this term made new adaptations to respond to gaps in skills. For example, some schools were:

• providing time for pupils to practise extended independent writing to build up their writing stamina, and working on pencil grip for younger pupils
• introducing daily grammar revision to fill gaps in grammatical skills
• focusing on swimming lessons as these had been stalled by the pandemic

Some secondary school leaders said that careers education was disrupted when pupils were learning remotely. Some had resumed face-to-face work experience but others said that this is still being done virtually. In a few schools, Year 10 and 11 pupils said they had missed out on work experience because of the pandemic. However, leaders said they want to prioritise this soon and they are working to rebuild links with external partners. In special schools, leaders were keen to re-establish activities outside of the classroom to prepare pupils for adulthood, such as work experience and travelling on public transport.

A few schools had bolstered their teaching provision for online safety following pupils’ increasing use of online technology. Alongside this, some schools have been reminded how much pupils rely on technology. This led them to review their computing curriculum and consider how best to make it relevant to their pupils. For example, one school noted that pupils were only comfortable using touch-screen devices, so they have addressed this by focusing on using desktop computers.

We have seen examples of both good and bad practice in curriculum adaptations. We found that, for most pupils, curriculum or GCSE options had not been narrowed. In focus group discussions, participants suggested that the education inspection framework, with its focus on a broad and balanced curriculum, had helped to dissuade schools from doing this.

We have commonly seen pupils with SEND taken out of foundation subjects to receive additional teaching in core subjects. This may be appropriate if, for example, the interventions are helping pupils catch up with learning to read. However, leaders need to be sure that their choices do not lead to unnecessary narrowing of the curriculum for these pupils.

We have seen some effective curriculum development across subjects. Some schools had adapted their curriculums to focus on the most crucial knowledge pupils needed to move forward with learning new content. This occurred in primary and secondary schools but was done particularly well in schools with strong subject knowledge and leadership.

Some schools used lockdowns to think about the school’s context and the pupils they have, which they then used when adapting the curriculum. They had sharpened their curriculum design and built links across the curriculum to help pupils to retain knowledge and make more sense of what they are learning.

Targeted support and tutoring

Schools used assessment to identify pupils or groups of pupils for focused support. This was often through group or one-to-one interventions. For example, some offered additional teaching in an afternoon session or through ‘pre-teaching’ before a whole-class lesson. Frequent assessment ensured that these groupings were constantly adjusted and responded to pupils’ specific needs. This was particularly common in phonics and mathematics, but also in other subjects to help pupils who have been absent for COVID-related reasons to catch up this term.

Some schools were using tutoring as part of their catch-up strategy, using the different routes offered by the National Tutoring Programme. [footnote 7]

Many schools using tuition partners had found that there was a lack of available tutors. Some schools had found that tutors did not follow their schools’ teaching approaches and said there was not enough evidence about the quality of the tutoring, leading them to conclude that the additional tutoring may not benefit pupils.

Instead, many schools had chosen the school-led route and trained their own staff as tutors, internally or across academy trusts. We have seen some good practice in using trained teaching assistants as tutors but using internal staff has placed additional pressure on already strained school staff.

Most of these schools were directing their attention towards tutoring for mathematics and English, in particular phonics and reading. Most schools said they had targeted pupils for tutoring, for example those with specific gaps in learning, those not meeting expectations, pupils with SEND or those entitled to pupil premium funding. Some schools were holding tutoring sessions outside of normal teaching hours, either before or after school.

We are doing a separate review of tutoring in schools and 16 to 19 providers and will publish a report following this.

School leadership

Staff absence, primarily due to COVID-19 cases, hit schools particularly hard in the spring term. Data from the DfE shows that staff absence increased between December 2021 and January 2022. Around 5% of teachers and school leaders were estimated to be absent in January due to COVID-related reasons. [footnote 8] This has been compounded by the existing national shortage of teaching staff, [footnote 9] along with challenges finding cover.

Some schools filled staff absence by employing supply teachers. However, sourcing classroom cover was often a challenge due to the current high demand and because some supply teachers were working as tutors in the National Tutoring Programme instead. A few leaders also expressed concern that supply teachers may not know the school’s expectations and teaching practices. Special schools found this particularly problematic because unfamiliar staff can be difficult for pupils who prefer routine and familiarity. Many schools used their own staff to cover lessons, including leaders, teachers and higher-level teaching assistants. This had increased staff workloads.

Around a quarter of school inspections planned before the spring half term were deferred due to COVID-related reasons, predominantly because of staffing issues. In these schools, covering lessons took up time that leaders would usually have had for operational and management duties, including engaging in inspection activities.

We found that in some secondary schools, difficult decisions had been made about which year groups to prioritise. For example, some had prioritised exam year groups by ensuring that they were taught by subject specialists, which left other year groups without specialist teachers.

A few secondary schools had felt forced by staff absence to send some children back to remote learning. In some cases, teachers who were self-isolating continued to teach lessons from home to pupils in the classroom.

During the spring term, staff absence and the increased workloads to cover this were causing some schools to delay implementing targeted support. For example, some had postponed intervention groups, programmes for phonics and mathematics, and staff training for tutoring.

We found that staff absence, increased workloads and competing demands had also prevented some leaders from monitoring teaching and learning as thoroughly as before the pandemic. Some school governors and trustees said their ability to monitor schools has also been hindered. With fewer opportunities to visit schools and meet face to face, they have not been able to challenge leaders as usual. A few schools said that governors and trustees had restarted visits in the autumn term.

External barriers

Circumstances outside schools’ control have affected or continue to affect how they help pupils to catch up. These include:

• delays and changes to external services
• changing COVID-19 guidance and advice
• additional COVID-related duties
• challenging community contexts

Schools have had difficulties accessing external services such as mental health services, therapists and local authorities because they have been unable to come into schools or have long waiting lists. Accessing expertise to diagnose SEND or getting education, health and care plans drawn up by the local authority have been challenging for schools. In some cases, they have not been able to happen at all. Special schools have been particularly challenged as they rely on many services from external agencies.

When these services have been able to come into schools, in some cases they have been unable to provide the same quality of service due to COVID-19 precautions. For example, one inspector observed personal protective equipment hindering a speech and language therapist delivering therapy.

The lack of clarity over the continued implementation of COVID-19 measures in schools has also been a challenge. In January 2022, leaders were applying COVID-19 measures in varying ways. We have seen that this has resulted in very different practice across schools and therefore very different experiences for pupils.

We found that staff time and schools’ resources have been put under pressure by the requirement to organise COVID-19 testing in schools. To manage this, some school leaders have had to take on more of a management role rather than a leadership role. Inspectors suggested that this has been detrimental to schools, even where there has been a track record of strong leadership.

The community context in which schools operate has also been difficult for some leaders. Disadvantaged communities have been particularly hard hit by the pandemic and some schools have provided additional support to parents with mental health or substance abuse issues. Across a range of different community contexts, schools have reported that they have had to help parents deal with COVID-related anxiety.

However, the pandemic had strengthened some schools’ relationships with parents. The support they offered parents has helped to foster more collaborative relationships. When face-to-face meetings with parents have not been possible, schools have adapted to ensure that engagement continues. For example, some used online communication portals or talked to parents in the playground.

Although schools are still facing some significant external barriers, they have been supported in their recovery by academy trusts and local authorities.

We found that most academy schools have been supported by their trust or multi-academy trust ( MAT ). Some MATs provided centralised assistance, including:

• pooling resources
• using trust-wide curriculums to identify the sequence and progression of subjects
• using trust-wide moderation to identify gaps in pupils’ knowledge

Others offered less centralised support, such as having termly meetings to discuss catch-up and trust leaders taking learning walks with school leaders.

Maintained schools have also been supported by local authorities. Leaders gave examples of:

• using local authority resources to improve attendance
• local authorities playing an advising role in schools’ catch-up work
• local authorities providing specialist teams to support pupils with social, emotional, and mental health needs

The government has also provided extra funding to schools to spend on catch-up. [footnote 10] Schools have spent the funding on a range of initiatives, most commonly: interventions, tutoring, additional staff (for academic and pastoral purposes), extended school hours and extra-curricular opportunities. As recommended by the DfE , many schools said they had prioritised using the funding to support vulnerable pupils and those in receipt of pupil premium.

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‘Teaching a broad and balanced curriculum for education recovery’ , Department for Education, July 2021.  ↩

‘Attendance in education and early years settings during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic’ , Department for Education, March 2022.  ↩

‘Subject-by-subject support for GCSE, AS and A level students in 2022’ , Ofqual, February 2022.  ↩

‘National tutoring programme (NTP)’ , Department for Education, September 2021.  ↩

‘Teacher shortages in England: analysis and pay options’ , Education Policy Institute, March 2020.  ↩

‘Catch-up premium’ , Department for Education, April 2021.  ↩

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Current educational issues

Being aware of what's going on in the education world and how this affects teachers is a great way of showing commitment at your teaching, NQT or teacher training interview

It's not possible to predict all future educational issues, or know every detail of the sector's current situation, but in the process of  applying for teacher training  some research will go a long way in demonstrating your enthusiasm and impressing potential employers.

Why you need to be aware of educational issues

Recruiters are looking to see how much you're engaging with current issues and are aware of the challenges that these place on a school. Your answers can reveal if you are genuinely interested in education, schools and the world of teaching.

Do some research to find studies or statistics to back up any ideas you have. Download a news app and get into the habit of checking the education section regularly. Having some recent evidence you can refer to in your interview will impress your interviewer.

You don't need to know everything, as there are far too many issues to discuss at length in such a short space of time. Aim to be knowledgeable in three areas, particularly those that relate to your curriculum area or age range.

Examples of current educational issues

Technology and education

• What lessons have teachers and schools learned about delivering courses successfully online?
• What are the risk factors involved in online learning?
• Do all children have access to appropriate devices?
• What are the risks of children having open access to the internet?
• Is engagement with learning the same for all users?

Government policies and spending

• How is the government responding to increasing pupil numbers? How does this response impact teacher recruitment and the overcapacity of secondary schools?
• What do budget cuts mean for pupils and teachers?

Assessment and attainment

• How has the new GCSE grading system impacted learning?
• How accurate are SATs results for primary schools? Is placing this level of pressure on children a viable way of testing intelligence?

You should also familiarise yourself with the nature of the exam system and global trends in attainment.

School reform

• What are your views on all schools becoming academies?
• How successful are Free Schools?
• What is the curriculum and how is it taught?
• What do you know about school funding reform?

Health and child development

• How can we better support pupils' mental health?

Education and the curriculum

• How important are arts and drama education in secondary schools?
• How much early years education should be provided for free?
• What are your views on the flipped classroom?
• Has inclusion been impacted by Brexit? How does this impact citizenship education and exploring British values?
• What is your approach to mainstream education for deaf and hard of hearing students?

How to find the latest issues in education

When you're researching facts to back up your answers, make sure you go to reliable sources. Not everything online is true, so good evidence - such as government statistics - is vital.

• BBC - Education
• The Guardian - Education
• GOV.UK - Education, training and skills
• The Independent
• The Glossary of Education Reform
• UK Parliament

Discussing educational issues in your teaching interview

You may have a question around recent education trends, current issues or new methodologies in education. In your interview you may be asked to create a presentation on current issues in education or asked a question around current issues in schools and in the media. Relate your answers back to the classroom - start with, 'when I was in the classroom, I noticed…' or 'in the staffroom, I heard teachers talk about...'. Take a look at what other  teaching interview questions  you may be asked.

If you aren't asked about issues in education, it's still a good idea to refer to relevant topics in your group interview or at some time in the recruitment process.

When you're in a teaching or newly qualified teacher (NQT) interview, the questions are generally more specific. There may be a question around your subject or age range, such as 'What are the important developments in science education?' Heads and governors will be looking for references to current educational issues and how these relate to their school. For example, if in a secondary teaching interview you were asked 'How would you support weaker pupils in your classroom?' you could refer to scaffolding techniques or the chunking method as a part of your answer.

Make sure that your answers are natural, not contrived and relate to the school or organisation that is interviewing you. It's worth finding out as much about the school as possible through your pre-visit, its website, prospectus, Ofsted reports and school development plan. Talk about solutions to some of the current challenges the school is facing, from your own knowledge and with examples of other practice you have seen.

It helps to get used to talking about issues in education with stakeholders, pupils, teachers, governors and parents. If you do this, you'll have more informed thoughts and opinions and a broader knowledge of the topics.

Find out more

• Want to improve your knowledge? Do some volunteering in schools .
• Discover what life as a primary school teacher is like, or see what it's like to be a secondary school teacher .

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Blog Ofsted: schools and further education & skills (FES)

https://educationinspection.blog.gov.uk/2023/02/01/ofsteds-2023-priorities-for-schools-and-further-education-and-skills/

Ofsted's 2023 priorities for schools and further education and skills

2023 is already shaping up to be another busy year for schools and further education (FE) and skills providers. While none of us can quite predict what might be around the corner, our Annual Report, published at the end of last year, did identify several challenges that will undoubtedly continue into this year.

We reported on the ongoing issues of the pandemic, including around attendance. Specifically, we highlighted the increasing use by schools of part-time timetables. Schools may be using these with the best of intentions but pupils can too easily move out of sight because they’re absent from education for too much time, and too often it is used to try to avoid the legal requirements around excluding a pupil.

We also warned about the number of children in unregistered schools, as well as children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), many of whom continue to struggle with inconsistent levels of support and a lack of joined-up provision.

Alternative provision (AP) was also an area of focus in the report, particularly unregistered AP, which does not have any direct oversight. It is sometimes used as a shadow SEND system, with pupils referred there indefinitely while they wait for a suitable placement at another school. This is unfair to the child and risks disguising the true level of demand for appropriate SEND support.

In the FE and skills sector, we found great variety in learners and providers’ experiences. We found good examples of ambitious curriculums, skilled teachers, and motivated learners. But we also saw:

• restricted or uncoordinated off-the job training
• not enough thought given to learners’ future employment
• poor overall outcomes for colleges teaching learners with severe or multiple disabilities.

Workforce pressures

There is clearly a lot of work to do to make sure that young people have the opportunities they deserve. But our report also highlighted the significant workforce pressures the sector is facing. Many schools and colleges are struggling to recruit and retain teachers, tutors, and other staff.

We also emphasised the importance of high-quality teacher training and development. It is vital that schools can recruit, train, and retain a highly skilled workforce.

Our report also included our reviews of T-levels and skills bootcamps. We found that many providers are delivering high-quality training and education, but some are finding it difficult to properly implement these new programmes. We will therefore be inspecting skills bootcamps from April and will be revisiting T-level providers in 2023.

Perhaps our most reported findings from 2022 were those from our inspections of previously exempt outstanding schools. The exemption was lifted during the pandemic, but we have now been able to inspect 370 formerly exempt schools. We found that 83% were no longer outstanding.

However, this may not be representative of all formerly exempt schools. We prioritised the schools that had gone the longest without inspection, an average of 13 years. And very few had been graded under the education inspection framework (EIF), which raised the bar for outstanding. As a result, they are not typical of all exempt schools, and the pattern of inspection outcomes may change later. We will therefore continue this programme and will inspect all previously exempt outstanding schools by the end of July 2025. We will publish a fuller report on previously exempt schools in the coming months.

Our annual report also provided an overview of inspection judgements. The proportion of state-funded schools judged good or outstanding is now 88%. This marks an increase from 86% in 2021.

It’s important to remember that during the pandemic (2020–21 and into 2022), we inspected with no outcomes data more recent than 2018-2019. However, as part of the Annual Report, we wanted to analyse the relationship between performance data and our judgements during this time. This analysis provided some confidence that there continues to be a relationship between statutory outcomes and inspection judgements. This is because of the clear link between a good quality of education and a school’s outcomes. That said, there is often less of a link for inadequate schools, because these are often judged inadequate for safeguarding rather than for quality of education.

Although improvements have been made, pupils’ attendance remains a priority for schools as we recover from the pandemic. Schools that have secured better attendance are characterised by leaders clearly and consistently communicating their high expectations. These leaders analyse any trends carefully to help them target their actions.

We look forward to continuing our curriculum insight work in 2023 by publishing further research reviews and the first of our subject reports. Our science subject report will be available soon and will paint a picture of the teaching of the subject across England. We hope that the findings and recommendations in these reports contribute further towards the growing pool of subject expertise.

At the end of 2022, we published our new area SEND inspection framework jointly with the Care Quality Commission (CQC). In January, we began carrying out our first inspections. The new framework aims to promote further improvement in the SEND system by strengthening accountability and focusing on the features we know make local area arrangements most effective in improving the lives of children and young people with SEND. We will share the findings and insights from our inspection evidence with government as plans for SEND reform continue to develop.

Finally, we’re developing training for all inspectors to help them understand some of the complexities that small schools face in delivering a broad, well-sequenced curriculum. This will help them when they’re inspecting small schools.

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Preschool funding, school food, and other key education issues take center stage at budget hearing

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As New York City schools stand to lose nearly $1 billion in the next fiscal year, City Council members pressed Education Department officials on how the looming drop in funding could impact the city’s early childhood system, school cafeteria menus, and other key education programs.

The Wednesday hearing came as City Council members and Mayor Eric Adams continue to negotiate the city’s budget for the next fiscal year, which is due by July 1.

Last month, Adams unveiled a budget proposal that would see the city’s Education Department funding shrink by 2.4%, or $808 million, next year — largely spurred by the expiration of billions of dollars of one-time federal COVID relief funds. Despite that drop in funding, the proposed budget devotes half a billion dollars in city and state funds to preserve several education programs currently propped up by the expiring federal dollars, including money for hundreds of social workers, the city’s free preschool program for 3-year-olds, and new staffers working in homeless shelters.

Other programs that have relied on the federal funds, however, remain at risk.

Education Department officials acknowledged the difficulties presented by the expiring federal funds, noting that they’ve advocated for the continuation of all such programs. Specific decisions about which programs to devote long-term city funding to have been made by the city’s Office of Management and Budget, said Emma Vadehra, the department’s chief operating officer.

Questions also centered on how the city’s schools would be impacted by sweeping cuts that Adams has ordered city agencies to enact over the past year to help cover costs for services to an influx of migrants. Under that separate directive, the Education Department faces more than $700 million in cuts to city funding for specific programs next year, including roughly $170 million slashed from early childhood programs. (The city’s overall contribution to the Education Department’s budget would still rise by nearly $1.6 billion under Adams’ proposal, though it’s not enough to offset the vast drop in federal funding next year.)

Schools Chancellor David Banks told council members it’s been “very challenging” to select certain programs to prioritize.

“I mean, it’s like, ‘Which one is your favorite child?’” he said. “These are all wonderfully, amazing programs. We don’t want to lose any of them.”

Here’s a look at some of the key education issues that arose during the hearing:

Council member clashes with DOE over preschool programs

Though Adams’ proposed budget would replace $92 million of expiring federal funding for 3-K — the city’s free preschool program for 3-year-olds — it does not restore a separate $170 million cut to city funding for early childhood programs. City Council members repeatedly expressed concerns over that cut during the hearing, seeking further details from Education Department officials about the potential impact of reduced funding.

Building up the free prekindergarten system for the city’s 3- and 4-year-olds was a centerpiece of former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration. Under Adams, the sector has been plagued with problems, including declining enrollment and lengthy payment delays to community organizations running programs.

On Wednesday, Education Department officials contended those issues had been inherited from the prior administration. They pointed to some improving metrics in the city’s early childhood system, stating enrollment in such programs had grown to roughly 114,000 children. That was up from 97,000 children earlier this year, according to city data released in November. Meanwhile, the average processing time for payments for early childhood providers had decreased to roughly 11 days.

Officials added they’ve worked to shift existing seats to neighborhoods with higher demand.

Capacity for the city’s 3-K program is roughly 53,000 seats, with about 44,000 filled, according to figures shared by Education Department officials during the hearing.

In one particularly contentious exchange, Brooklyn Council Member Lincoln Restler questioned why Education Department officials were unable to say definitively how many seats the city’s preschool programs would be able to offer next year after the $170 million cut.

“These are the cuts that the mayor has proposed that he wants to implement to your agency: What would be the impact of them?” he said. “How many fewer seats would you have? This is like the most plain, simple, obvious question that we were going to get all day. I’m a little disappointed that we’re not getting a straight answer.”

Education Department officials said any reductions would be focused in areas where seats aren’t filled.

Restler also pressed department officials for details about the full release of a report on 3-K seats . City officials hired the consulting firm Accenture last year to “map out needs and seats” as the program grappled with thousands of vacancies.

Officials previously said Accenture would be paid $760,000 to compile the report. But on Wednesday, Education Department officials cited a significantly lower figure of “$350,000 or $250,000.” They did not provide a precise timeline for the release.

City officials did not immediately explain the discrepancy between the two figures.

Budget cuts prompt concerns over school food

City Council members also expressed concerns over how budget cuts to school food would affect students next year. A $60 million November cut to the city’s school foods budget sparked outcry earlier this year , as the reduced funding forced cafeterias to remove popular items like chicken dumplings and bean and cheese burritos from their menus.

Though the city later restored some of those menu items , council members questioned whether the lingering cuts would impact cafeteria menus in the coming school year.

“We are monitoring this very closely,” Vadehra said. “We are very invested in making sure all of these food options stay on the menu for students next year.”

City officials express concerns over state funding

Education Department officials noted multiple times during the hearing that although state funding for the city’s schools increased for the coming fiscal year, the city is getting less than expected. A change to the formula determining how much money is sent to districts left New York City schools with $126 million less than anticipated.

Over the coming year, the state’s Education Department will partner with the Rockefeller Institute to conduct a longer term examination of that formula , in hopes of implementing further changes, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced last month.

“Our costs do continue to grow each year, which is why it’s important the state’s contribution — which is a lesser proportion of our budget now than it was 20 years ago — continues to increase,” Vadehra said.

City Education Department officials also told council members they had not yet received sufficient funding to fully implement a state law mandating smaller class sizes. But the department will continue to invest in hiring additional teachers and expanding classroom space to remain in compliance with the law, officials said.

An additional $180 million will go to school budgets, with around $135 million explicitly earmarked for compliance with the state class size law, Vadehra said. She estimated those funds would allow for hiring between 1,200 and 2,000 new teachers.

“Assuming those teachers can be found,” she added.

Education programs still at risk as fiscal cliff looms

City Council members drew attention to several education programs that have relied on expiring federal funds and are not included in the mayor’s proposed budget — including $65 million funding roughly 400 contracted school nurses , as well as millions of dollars to support restorative justice programs .

Education Department officials were unable to say during the hearing how many schools would be left without a nurse as that funding dries up later this year. Currently, every public school in the city has at least one nurse in the building.

Meanwhile, restorative justice programs, which aim to resolve conflict through peer mediation and other less punitive methods, are at risk of losing more than half of their current budget as the federal funds expire. Education Department officials said roughly $8 million of the $13.6 million committed to restorative justice programs this year comes from expiring federal dollars.

At the hearing, Banks encouraged council members to advocate for the funding to be restored.

“You all are still engaged in the process,” he said. “You can certainly, as you are engaged in this conversation and negotiations, push to make sure that [restorative justice] gets restored.”

In total, the city’s Education Department faces a gap of more than $200 million in expiring federal funds for education programming next year, officials said.

Alex Zimmerman contributed reporting.

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at [email protected] .