COVID lockdowns continue to harm students... five years after the pandemic

Canadian youth continue to reel from the pandemic, amid declining academic performance and mental health, revealed a new study.

Students under the age of 18 were behind approximately 70% of a school year in math and 30% in reading, according to a major international assessment presented by Louis Volante, an education professor at Brock University.

The first post-lockdown school year (2022) saw decreased academic performance globally, according to the OECD study. Some 23,000 Canadian students were studied to measure the pandemic’s effect on their education.

A separate but related 2023 study found that the government disregarded the psychological effects of social isolation during the pandemic, and one-third of Canadians felt pressured to obey public health orders.

Asked, “To what extent did you feel pressured by others to practice or not practice individual public health measures?” Three in ten said they felt pressured, including 38% for parents with young children.

Parents of children under 18 were more likely than other respondents to report their mental health as average, reported Blacklock’s.

Others explained their mental health worsened because of the public health measures, including anxiety from state surveillance and being unable to leave the house.

The Fraser Institute writes the pandemic lockdowns, as implemented, were a “radical and untried social policy.”

“Ultimately, estimates of the benefit of lockdowns in terms of lives saved were made based on data. Analysts used many procedures to identify the causal effect of lockdowns,” reads the essay COVID-19: The Lessons We Should Have Learned. 

“There was only an average reduction in mortality of 3.2 percent,” it said. The Imperial College of London model significantly overestimated COVID-related deaths in Canada, predicting 132,687 deaths by July 30, 2020, while the actual number was 9,019.

According to a recent study, the authors of COVID lockdowns heeded no concern for the psychological consequences of social isolation. One-third of Canadians felt coerced into complying with public health orders.https://t.co/2cAJ9aNcIG

Volante told CBC News that governments should address other deficits that can help with learning losses, like bullying, while awaiting 2025 PISA results.

“We also have to think in terms of things like physical health, mental health, social emotional learning, [and a] sense of belonging to schools,” Volante said.

“What we’re finding is that the impact on learning losses is significantly higher when we also see that they’re not doing as well in some of these other non-cognitive, non-academic areas.”

His research found that while most provinces offered some academic support to students after the pandemic, support for social skills and mental health was severely lacking.

“If we can support the whole child, we’re much more likely to see them do well academically in the future, as well,” he said.

Scientists tell MPs #Covid lockdowns, loss of sports and in-person schooling took heavy tool on children's mental health, left a "psychosocial hidden burden"  https://t.co/T6VPxi1oRP #cdnpoli @GovCanHealth pic.twitter.com/LmOJn9WrUf

Lessons found that babies born during the pandemic scored lower on gross and fine motor skills, had developmental delays, and fared much worse on intelligence tests. 

“It is tragically ironic that children were least likely to suffer from the COVID disease but the most likely to suffer from the COVID-19 response,” it said.

Canadians' Views concurred that parents were worried about potential negative impacts on their children’s schooling and their willingness to study.

Government restrictions resulted in minimized social interactions, “curtailing the daily lives of the population and the subsequent loss of temporal landmarks such as life events.”

According to Blacklock’s, only 11% of Canadians surveyed had received mental health support at some point during the pandemic. “Now that restrictions have been lifted, all participants agreed their mental health has improved,” said the pollster report.

Alex Dhaliwal

Journalist and Writer

Alex Dhaliwal is a Political Science graduate from the University of Calgary. He has actively written on relevant Canadian issues with several prominent interviews under his belt.

Help fund Alex's journalism!