The impacts of the Covid–19 pandemic on the domestic, educational and other social environments, besides creating barriers for the learning process, resulted in a major educational setback. This first half year of 2022 saw the resumption of presential classes at public and private Elementary Education institutions throughout the Country leaving a challenging scenery for schools and the community: to recover non-learned contents and deal with psychosocial sequels that affected not only the students, but also the teachers, since the pandemic caused a total or partial absence from the school environment for almost two years.

During this period, students and teachers had to adapt their teaching method to the online access and remote education channels – such as computers, notebooks, tablets and cellphones – or with partial attendance practices, because learning materials, along with the instructions for execution of the assignments, were delivered in paper to the students by some institutions, to be elaborated at home. The combination of difficulties for Internet access, the absence of the social environment and adequate educational support, the lack of face-to-face contact with educators, the unequal access to support materials, and the lack of food security resulted in major losses for students’ development especially in public schools.

A survey by the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV) indicated that children outside of the school system represented 1.39% in 2019. In 2020, this figure escalated to 5.5%. The main group affected were children aged 5 to 9, an age group that was undergoing increasing improvements in the foregoing 40 years. According to Marcelo Neri, economist and researcher at FGV, the Country’s education fell back 15 years regarding child literacy after the pandemic: “the fact is that from 5 to 9 years is a decisive period in terms of education in which we lost 15 years, without mentioning the lost time at school. This deterioration was more intense in poorer social segments and in Northern Brazil, the drop was much greater than in the South and Southeast,” mentioned Neri.

In addition to the school dropout and worsening literacy, several indicators show a poorer student performance in practically all subjects and levels. One example, according to results of the São Paulo State School Performance Evaluation System (Saresp), published by the State Education Secretariat (Seduc-SP) in March of this year, 96.6% of high school students in the state network finished school with below-adequate performance in mathematics, in 2021. The variation was -4.48% compared to 2019, the largest drop in the series. In Portuguese language, meanwhile, 76% of the state’s students were evaluated with very sub-optimal knowledge, with an 8.6% worsening as compared to 2019, when 67.4% of 3rd grade high school students were evaluated with the same assessment model.

Thinking about all the negative impact the pandemic caused to education, Associação Nova Escola – a nonprofit organization of social impact that works to strengthen Brazilian elementary school teachers – developed a project, with entire support by Instituto Chamex and other partners, aiming to help educators in the identification of legs and construction of strategies to store, prioritize and boost essential skills and competences in all stages of the Elementary Education. This initiative provides support for teachers from all over the country, by means of reports, interviews and free courses, training them to perform a restoration of fundamental learning processes, considering – specifically – anchors such as development of speech, communication and social interaction of the children.

The Restoration of Learning is an emerging educational demand because it involves a humanized treatment, with adaptation of the curriculum and pedagogical practices, assessment strategies, additional teacher training, and access to appropriate teaching materials. The combination of these and other actions, according to what each school network considers essential for its reality, forms the restoration which Instituto Chamex sponsors with a methodology focused on the early childhood. The main purpose is to accelerate and improve the teaching and learning process, considering the different educational levels of each student, since access to education has been unequal throughout the pandemic.

Click here, access the site “Nova Escola” and see how to ensure the Learning Restoration in your school and in your classes! =)