Students wait for the start of a mock college entrance examination at a classroom of a high school in the southern city of Gwangju on June 3, 2021. (Yonhap)
CHUNCHEON, June 21 (Korea Bizwire) — In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has forced schools into remote learning, a recent study showed that the academic performance of students at schools that have more attendance days deteriorated less.
The Gangwon-do Education & Science Research Institute analyzed the second-semester academic performance (from 2018 to 2020) of the second year students at the region’s 157 middle schools.
The institute compared the change in the ratio of the students’ academic achievement grades (grades A to E) in the subjects of English, mathematics and Korean language.
The analysis showed that the percentage of high-ranked students declined and the share of low-ranked students increased following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Before the outbreak of the COVID-19 crisis, there was a trend in which the percentage of A-grade students was increasing and that of E-grade students declining.
After the pandemic, however, the share of A-grade students declined and that of E-grade students increased.
Nonetheless, for the schools that had a higher number of attendance days than others, the growth rate in the share of E-grade students was lower than others, while the share of middle-ranked students was higher than others.
After classifying groups depending on the number of attendance days, the institute found that the share of E-grade students in all of the three subjects increased less at the schools that had more attendance days than others.
In addition, schools with more attendance days had a higher share of middle-grade students in the subjects of mathematics and English.
J. S. Shin (js_shin@koreabizwire.com)
