Public Education

This chapter presents evidence that already before the pandemic, therewere large differences between members of the Emerging European Economies (EEE) in the effectiveness of their public education, and accordingly, their stock of human capital. While in the majority of the EEE, in terms of expected years of schooling, young people get the same or even more public education than the EU15 average, the quality measures of public education are very variable in these countries. In most of the EEE, the level of basic skills of young people is below that in more advanced economies. There is growing evidence that the inability of middle-income countries to improve the quality of public education is an important factor in the emergence and persistence of the middle-income trap. The education systems, although of very different quality in the EEE, were equally severely affected by the pandemic during the last two academic years (the second half of 2019-2020 and 2020-2021). Schools were closed, and on average, only one-fifth of schooling took place under ‘normal’ conditions in the EEE. This has resulted in large learning losses, the extent of which this chapter examines via published statistics and the authors’ own estimates and calculations. On this basis, the claim is made that not only did the pandemic heighten pre-existing disparities, but it also exposed the EEE with previously successful public education policies to the risk that their former advantage could disappear if they fail to offset the effects of the pandemic. This, in turn, has the potential to contribute to these countries falling into a middle-income trap. This, however, can be avoided through appropriate educational policy responses, to which the chapter also offers some suggestions.