Education in Spain: Schools in Spain post Covid

Teachers, students, parents and families all felt the effects of the global pandemic. But In 2023, we have finally left Covid in the past and things are back to normal in classrooms. In September 2022, Spain dropped all restrictions relating to Covid including social distancing, intensified cleaning and disinfecting, and the obligation to wear a mask.

There is an issue of ‘lost learning’ created by the pandemic and the disruption it caused in schools. Some leaders estimate that it will take students at least three years to recover from the effects of the pandemic, with others predicting that the impacts would follow children throughout their school lives. This is particularly true of younger learners, with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) saying: “Schools were forced to replace this time in class with online learning and homeschooling, in most cases facilitated by teachers and parents”.

The mental health and wellbeing of children also suffered during the pandemic, with school being a main source of interaction and socialisation. Mental wellbeing was also the main aspect that was focused on when reintroducing children back into schools, so as not to overwhelm them.

The school closures during Covid cost children one third of a year’s learning and there is now a sustained effort to help students recover lost knowledge and skills. According to research, mathematics skills were more affected than reading abilities. The study, published in Nature Human Behaviour, shows that efforts to prevent further learning losses after the pandemic has been successful. However, lower-income families were hit harder during the pandemic, due to a lack of access to digital learning.

Amanda Neitzel, a researcher at the John Hopkins School of Education in Baltimore, said: “This isn’t going to be something that we catch up in a year or two, when everything is back to normal — I think this is going to be a decade long”.

“We need to rethink schooling and make substantial changes to the structure and way that we do education to make this up.”

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