As far as paying for the pandemic is concerned, it looks like the proverbial drinks are very much on the house.

Between furloughs, PPI equipment, public health expenditure and medical equipment all on the ‘never-never’, society is sitting tight waiting for the inevitable tax rise or the cancellation of public spending projects.

As sure as summer follows spring, it will happen; just when.

Lost education

In recent days, however, the true cost of lost education is something that has fallen under the spotlight.

Not the immediate price of laptops and the like, nor indeed the emotional cost of isolation; this is the actual long-term economic shortfall that will arise by children not being fully taught or instructed in traditional’ lessons.

Out of the blue, it was the esteemed Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) which raised its august heads above the parapet to break the news, telling us that in simple terms, it has previous proven data which claims that for every year a pupil is in school, their earnings increase by an accumulating eight per cent. By their calculations, if half a year’s school is lost, then our 8.7 million school-age children will have lost £350 billion over their lifetime’s earnings across the whole of the UK.

Scaling that back, we have approximately three per cent of the UK’s population in NI, which means young people here stand to lose around £10.5 billion over their lifetimes. This is also a huge hole in the pocket of the public purse, nominally around £100 billion less revenue for the UK or £3 billion for NI – nine or ten SWAHs to give it a local context. Maybe this is one of the drivers behind Stormont wanting pupils back in schools?

Of course, these things are difficult to measure but as the IFS is quick to point out, accurate research from the Netherlands suggests that results from tests taken in Dutch primary schools which were closed for eight weeks during the first lockdown in spring 2020, were much behind normal scores for previous generations. An isolated but worrying trend.

Whatever way you look at it, lost schooling means lost income for both the individuals concerned and also for public purse; a lose-lose situation.

Of course, these figures need to be taken with a large pinch of low-sodium salt and don’t in any shape or form take account of some fairly obvious mitigations.

Firstly, all learning is dynamic. This means that careers build upon what is the current situation in people’s lives. Individuals grow with and into their jobs, advance their careers by moving forwards, sideways and sometimes backwards before progressing with the ebb and flow of life and everyday living. It would take a brave economist to forecast the impact of this on future economic growth.

Big challenges

Secondly, we don’t know the state of the global economy for the years ahead, we can’t. There are many big challenges ahead such as the move to a greener economy by adhering to the Kyoto Agreement, the impact of trade deals across the world as borders evolve and not least, human developments and inventions which shape future generations.

Who would have thought the impact the internet and robotic technology has had on society and could this happen in the future for a product we don’t know about yet? Very probably, but the end of the day, jobs are like cornflakes. If there’s a demand for the skills you offer, you get paid more, if there’s not, your pay-packet reflects this.

Less up in the air is the whole issue that losses of earnings will not be spread evenly, with those from disadvantaged backgrounds likely to lose the most from remote learning.

One such ‘add on’ fact is that market for private tutors is growing all the time and those parents who have greater resources in terms of money, time and facilities will arguably be able to aid their children’s home-schooling better than most.

Academic attainment

For what it’s worth, these are the thoughts of the IFS, as the whole topic of academic attainment versus disposable income is an entirely separate discussion.

In this respect, the figures presented to us are raw data based solely on the arithmetic totals of days lost in education being equal to a percentage of annual earnings; this eight per cent figure. It may apply on a global scale but in terms of the here and now in Co Fermanagh, it may or may not be relevant. The truth is, we don’t know.

So how can this shortfall be rectified?

Firstly, society needs to accept that the current arrangements of remote learning are essentially a way of filling a gap in a rather than rebuilding the road.

They’re not perfect but they keep things ticking over, though some schools in acts of bravado are claiming that their teaching and learning activities are running just as normal and children are still engaged.

The reality is, they’re not. In the words of a local technology teacher, ‘it doesn’t matter how many videos you watch, you can’t teach someone how to hold and use a router until you’re standing beside them’.

One suggested solution to this is to up-scale tutoring on a national level, a fact supported by the National Tutoring Programme. Coincidentally it is the Dutch again who are leading the repechage in this area, funding a two-year programme of extra support for primary, secondary and indeed vocational schools.

To put it in context, a year’s teaching costs about £2 billion in Northern Ireland. The IFS has called for politicians to consider upping this considerably to make up for the lifetime potential earnings shortfall. Ostensibly this is seen as a drive to get young people more tuition but like everything in life, it’s just not as straight-forward as that.

What’s missing from this detail is who would do it, who would organise it, when would it be done, who would assess the need, what subjects and areas would be targeted and how would it’s success be monitored?

Options limited

That’s just the simple parameters of course and for this to happen, especially given the many types of schooling we have in such a small devolved nation, it could take years and many arguments and walk-outs to organise.

Clearly, the options are limited and without doubt, any way of increasing tutoring time for young people would pose huge questions for the three partners in education; pupils, teachers and parents. So what’s available?

Extending the school day or the school year may seem the most straight-forward, but this not only means re-writing teachers’ and classroom assistants’ contracts but also scheduling something that fits in with society’s existing domestic arrangements in terms of school transport, childcare resources and a host of other factors.

This is something that that would be met with great resistance from the teaching profession for many practical reasons but it’s out there and before Christmas, the Welsh Secretary, Kirsty Williams, went on record of having said that she was ‘keen to look at all options’ to return to face-to-face teaching.

Some may also remember there were was a failed attempt last summer to extend the summer term in the former Principality. Was this a mischevious ‘plant’ to judge reaction? If it was, the result was carnage.

Sounds fine

A second idea mooted in TV discussions and by the odd brave politician is that pupils could repeat a year. In theory, it sounds fine but at what age do you start and where do you stop?

More flesh would need to put on the bones of this for it to have any traction, but from the initial soundings, it seems madly unworkable in a Father Ted kind of way.

A further concept which is recently emerging is to redress key areas of the curriculum. That sounds laudable but for a balanced workforce and society, would investing billions into what would presumably be more English, Maths and Science create a workforce capable of redressing this missing eight per cent of a salary?

The very thought of this would have the educational academics lining up to take potshots at politicians if they tried that one.

One thing is for certain though, is that we need to grasp the nettle of targeting the disadvantaged as this is a group where the attainment gap is growing faster than mainstream education and the longer the lockdown, the greater the chasm between the educationally and financially ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’.

The bottom line is, do we prioritise public spending projects, do we invest in redressing the educational losses, or do we go half chips and half rice?

The choice is difficult, but one wonders if the near-completed South West and Devenish Colleges will be the last new school building we see locally for a very long time.