The students from the Netherlands in the study were between 8-11 years old.

Just before the first school closure due to the corona pandemic in March 2020, the usual national tests were done in reading, arithmetic and spelling.

For eight weeks, the students had distance learning.

Then it was time for the next national test in June.

Compared how knowledge has developed over three years

The students' results differed greatly between different schools.

Children who come from homes with low-educated parents did the worst.

But the average in the test for reading, writing and math showed that the students barely learned anything at all during two months of distance learning.

The results were compared with the development of knowledge between national tests three years back in the same schools and families.

Distance education hits weak students hard

- The conclusion one can draw is that distance education is not very effective.

It is an extremely well-done study, but it is not straightforward to compare with the situation for Swedish high school students who were the ones who had the most distance education here during the pandemic, says Martin Karlberg who is a school researcher at Uppsala University.

The Dutch school is relatively well-funded and equally points out the researchers behind the study and the broadband coverage and computer access is good in the home.

Nevertheless, distance education has hit the students' knowledge hard.

The Netherlands invests 60 times more than Sweden in the loss of knowledge

Whether the tap can be taken back remains to be seen.

The Dutch government has so far invested the equivalent of SEK 80 billion extra for students to be able to make up for lost knowledge.

In Sweden, the Swedish government has so far invested just under SEK 1.4 billion.

According to the National Agency for Education, there is no national picture of how long Swedish students in upper secondary school and upper secondary school have had distance education since March 2020. Martin Karlbergs estimates that distance education for many Swedish upper secondary school students is significantly more than the two months measured in the Netherlands.

- One should really start thinking now about how we should compensate these students so that they can make up for what they missed.

Otherwise, they may not be able to cope with the university courses and be less equipped for working life, Martin Karlberg believes.