CHAPTER 8
The pandemic, socioeconomic disadvantage and learning outcomes in Hungary
István Boza, Zoltán Hermann and Dániel Horn
Abstract
This chapter investigates the ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic, marked by school closures and the transition to online education, for student performance in standardised tests. It also explores the interplay between the magnitude of learning loss and various student and school attributes. This chapter cannot examine education policies mitigating the learning gap, as education policy design was not organised at the national level and there are no data available for impact analyses of school-level policies. Specifically, this chapter scrutinises alterations in student test scores relative to family backgrounds during the COVID-19 era in Hungary, drawing on data from the national assessment of basic competences (NABC). The analytical framework employed in this chapter uses student-level data from the NABC, a comprehensive assessment database assessing mathematical and reading literacy among students in grades 6, 8 and 10. The focus is the period from 2010 to 2021. Our findings reveal an uneven distribution of learning loss among students. Contrary to expectations, students from higher social backgrounds or possessing stronger academic abilities were more severely affected by the pandemic, school closures and the transition to distance learning. Conversely, students hailing from disadvantaged backgrounds, particularly the most vulnerable, did not experience significant impacts from the pandemic.
