I don’t understand this…surely the kids will catch up fairly quickly??? And to think the teachers were vastly supportive of the lock downs, even pushing for more lock downs at one stage. Madness Lockdown impact on children risks damaging productivity for decades, says OECD Deterioration in comprehension skills could harm earnings potential of school leavers Szu Ping Chan5 February 2024 • 1:08pm Lockdowns threaten to stunt global growth for decades because of the lasting impact of pandemic school closures on children’s learning and job prospects, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The Paris-based organisation warned that the deterioration in basic reading and writing skills among 15-year olds since 2018 risked damaging the earnings potential of a generation of school leavers throughout their working lives. It said this could drag down economic growthfor much of this century, warning in its latest economic outlook that this could have a “persisting negative impact on the level of productivity over the next 30 to 40 years”. The warning comes just months after the OECD warned that post-pandemic maths and science test scores among British pupils had fallen to the lowest level since records began in 2006, while reading proficiency has fallen to a level last seen in 2009. The results of the internationally-respected research, known as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), was described in its latest economic outlook on Monday as “particularly concerning” for global growth prospects. The OECD added: “School closures during the pandemic may have contributed to the recent drop in test scores, particularly for disadvantaged students who were unable to benefit fully from online teaching.” Advertisement The organisation urged countries to invest more in teaching quality and teachers’ qualifications as it highlighted a longer term decline in educational attainment Productivity growth is crucial for rising living standards because wages can only sustainably rise faster than prices when workers generate more output. The OECD’s stark warning came as it urged countries around the world to do more to support disadvantaged students as well as expanding vocational education and lifelong learning as technological advances threaten to destroy more jobs. It also warned that inflation was likely to remain higher and more stubborn in the UK than in any other major advanced economy. The OECD predicts inflation will remain the highest in the G7 for the next two years, despite a big drop in energy costs that is predicted to push the headline rate to 2pc within months. Its latest forecasts showed prices, as measured by the consumer prices index (CPI) were likely to average 2.8pc this year and 2.4pc next – higher than any other rich large nation. The Bank of England warned last week that the drop to 2pc by spring was likely to be temporary, with inflation not returning sustainably to its 2pc target until the end of 2026. Advertisement The OECD said interest rates globally were likely to remain higher for longer, even as it said the US could probably start to lower interest rates by June. The World Bank has previously warned that today’s students could lose up to 10pc of their future earnings due to lockdown-induced education shocks. It warned in a report last year that “the cognitive deficit in today’s toddlers could translate into a 25pc decline in earnings when these children are adults.”
In response to the excess deaths of the last couple of years...ONS have now changed the way figures are calculated, the numbers are now much lower How convienant !
They can't present lower historic figures as it would raise an awful lot of questions that they would prefer were not asked. They have made a proper dogs dinner of the statistics and were arrogant and pompous when obvious flaws were flagged up to them. It's poorly gathered and poorly managed.
how on earth can they tell whether there's excess deaths when they haven't the faintest idea how many people are in the country
I was more looking at Steven Brine's words. There are some interesting books and articles by people high up and active in public health that discuss the failings in the science and data management that lead to bad initiatives taking centre stage. This one is 30 years old, but the issues it raises still remain, and in several cases have got even worse. Preventionitis: Exaggerated Claims of Health Promotion Paperback – 4 July 1994 by James Le Fanu (Editor)
His claims, that for interest of balance have been debunked by many doctors, are that junk food is bad for ppl, sugar is worse that fat, high carb diets are bad for those of Indian descent, the west is over-medicated and under exercised and losing weight if obese would have a better effect on surviving covid than a vaccine for those under 65. Ppl should make their own decisions in life.
Focusing on him is a bad decision. He's irrelevant to the article. Some of the so called expert information can lead to bad life decisions.
In the UK in the 1990s, pretty much all doctors recommended eating 'diet' products - products that had had the fat removed and replaced with sugar. This has now been proven to be the opposite of healthy - sugar increases and encourages appetite, fat suppresses/sates it. Plus the effect of diabetes that sugar over consumption can cause. Most doctors aren't nutritionists - they don't have the time or interest to study it - they repeat and advise what they've read or been told, same as every other job where you can't feasibly study everything. Ppl have to experiment and find out what works best for them and make their own decisions. The aforementioned doctor began to criticise the medical establishment around 2015, that it is over-focused on keeping ppl alive as long as possible, but not putting as much emphasis on maintaining a good quality of life - focusing too much on curing/ maintaining, not enough on prevention. Criticising the established authority is always going to result in being mocked/discredited whether right or not.
The prime example being listening to experts who advise limiting to your alcohol intake to 14 units a weekl
You seem to be confirming that it can be a bad decision to follow the 'experts'. There have been some very poor studies that prompted big expensive campaigns. Criticism of the methodology was not well received. Some of those campaigns are still running, and others follow the same weak methodologies. That's not conspiracy, that's from those involved and raised to try to correct it.
I was all in favour of the 14 unit limit. Until it was explained to me that it was a week, not a day.
