New research shows that children worldwide suffered from learning deficits equivalent to one-third of a school year due to the closure of schools at the start of the pandemic.  The analysis found that two years after school closures, students had not yet recovered from those learning losses. The research, based on educational data from 15 countries, was published in Nature Human Behavior on Monday. The study's authors examined 42 different studies published between March 2020 and August 2022, finding that global education deficits were equivalent to ~35% of a school year. The study found that math education was more negatively impacted than reading. The shutdown of schools disproportionately harmed low-income students. Middle-income nations like Brazil, Mexico, and South Africa saw greater educational deficits than developed economies. Education researcher Thomas Kane, who was not involved in the study, said that "learning loss will be the longest-lasting and most inequitable legacy of the pandemic.” According to UNICEF, ~1.6 billion children worldwide missed a significant amount of school time during the peak of the pandemic.