TORONTO – A recent poll shows that one-in-five Ontario parents are concerned their child has lost out on valuable learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and that their child’s school has no plan to catch up them.
Leger polled Canadian parents of kids in kindergarten through Grade 12 on behalf of the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank. The poll was conducted online, with 1,000 interviews being conducted with a representative sampling of parents across Canada between Nov. 12-21.
“Ontario parents—and indeed parents across Canada—are rightly worried that the school closures and education disruptions as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic could have long lasting impacts on their child’s learning,” said Paige MacPherson, associate director of education policy at the Fraser Institute.
The poll found that 41 per cent of parents in Ontario think their child is behind a lot as a result of COVID-19 disruptions, with 20 per cent of parents concerned that the school has no plan to make up for lost learning.
Across Canada, 17 per cent of parents similarly expressed that their child was behind a lot and that the school had no plan to catch them up.
“A significant number of Ontario parents say their kids have fallen behind academically, and their child’s school has no plan to catch them up,” MacPherson said.
“If educators and school administrators fail to address these gaps, the impacts of this learning loss will not be short-lived for Canadian children.”
