Educational inequality during the COVID-19 pandemic in Vietnam: Implications for disadvantaged children

Abstract

School closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic shifted education from traditional face-to-face classrooms to online learning settings. This abrupt change interrupted learning, worsening the existing inequality in education. This paper aims to provide empirical evidence on educational inequality in a low- and middle-income country by using nationally representative data of 4,920 children in Vietnam. In particular, we examine whether there were educational inequalities between disadvantaged and advantaged children (i.e., rural and urban, poor and non-poor, or having many and few young dependents in a family) during the pandemic. Our results reveal that during school closure, disadvantaged children were less likely to engage in learning activities, indicating their higher likelihood of dropping out relative to advantaged children. These disadvantaged children also had fewer learning days and fewer chances to access online learning. Additionally, drop-out children during school closure were less likely to return to school upon re-opening. Accordingly, we discuss some implications to tackle or mitigate educational inequality during and after the pandemic.