GoStudent Educational Report: Executive Summary Plus Full Download

By Connie Kulis-Page
December 15, 2021

What’s included in the GoStudent Educational Report?
Facts and background to the survey
Parents Survey – that’s what our parents are saying!
Perspectives on the tutoring experience
Conclusion

GoStudent’s world-first Education Report tells the story of how parents and students across Europe have experienced schooling over the last year. Read on and download the full report for unmissable insights into how our educational wellbeing fared during an unprecedented year of learning in a pandemic world. 🌍 child and mum online learning

What’s included in the GoStudent Educational Report?

From educational wellbeing, to study habits, learning gaps and adaptive learning, GoStudent’s world-first Education Report tells the fascinating story of how parents and students across Europe have experienced schooling over the last year – 2020–2021.

GoStudent undertook extensive research to better understand learning, online learning and tutoring behaviour in seven European countries, from the perspective of both parents and students. This year’s report features a dedicated section on “learning in a pandemic world”, exploring how parents and their children see challenges and the severity of learning gaps differently. 👪

Facts and background to the survey

The data for the report was acquired by an online survey (CAWI) conducted in seven European markets, including The UK, Spain, Italy, France, The Netherlands, Germany and Austria. In total, 6,276 parents and 5,767 children, aged between 10 and 18, were surveyed from October 1 to 16, 2021. 🚸

Key findings

Overall, 80 percent of children were affected by the pandemic and suffered more from those challenges than parents were aware of – in the UK parents and children were equally aware
The biggest challenge for children was the lack of social connections
Overall, children are more pessimistic about closing learning gaps than parents – however, in the UK children are more optimistic than their parents by far
The largest learning gaps occurred in Maths despite it being the most tutored subject
Almost half of the time spent on education was online last year
Even though 85 percent of children see the value of having a tutor, only 16 percent of them received tutoring

Parents Survey – that’s what our parents are saying!

The results from parents represent legal guardians of 10–18-year-olds who are sole or joint decision-makers regarding their child’s education. Over 1000 parents from the UK were surveyed for the GoStudent Education Report. 👨‍👨‍👧

We created indexes for the report that measure several factors and enable us to compare them between countries and demographic profiles within countries. For example, the Parental Education Wellbeing Index indicates how well parents felt about supporting their children in school matters.

The majority of both parents and children in Britain believe the pandemic has posed significant educational and developmental challenges. Children are more optimistic for the future – only 15 percent believe they will struggle to catch up during this academic year, whereas 60 percent of parents feel learning gaps might continue into the new academic year.

Overall, fathers felt better than mothers with fathers and male caregivers scoring 73 on the Education Wellbeing Index compared to mothers and female caregivers’ 70. In fact, fathers scored higher than mothers across all wellbeing attributes, except the interaction with their children on schoolwork.

Parents who have higher involvement with their child’s education are more satisfied with their school performance. The average Parental Involvement Index was 69, parents with an index above 80 also scored higher in the parental satisfaction score – 4.2 out of 5. 👍

Perspectives on the tutoring experience

Children in Britain feel the benefit of private tutoring more than others – 96 percent said they found value in tutoring outside of class hours, compared to only 85 percent of European children. Of parents choosing tutoring for their children, 27 percent cited the lockdown’s impact on their child’s ability and motivation to learn as a main motivating factor. 🧑‍🎓

Children who received private tutoring during the last academic year were two times more optimistic that they will catch up this year compared to those who weren’t tutored. 65 percent of tutoring received in the UK was focused on catching up in Maths. Children in Britain feel they spend an average of 19 hours a week in educational activities outside of the classroom with girls feeling they spend slightly more than boys – 20 and 18 hours respectively.

The findings from the GoStudent Educational Report also show that in Britain especially, learning gaps and a lack of educational confidence were more prevalent amongst children from lower-income households. This disparity is only exacerbated by the cost of private tutoring, with a tutoring session costing more in the UK than in any of the seven countries analysed. 💰

Conclusion

Overall, this has been a challenging year for educators, students and parents alike. Nearly four in five children in the UK feel that remote learning in lockdown significantly disrupted their education and development with those in Britain expressing deep concern about their education with Maths and English hit hardest.

GoStudent hopes that this comprehensive annual investigation into the European experience of education will, over time, show trends and changes in the field of education and uncover valuable insights that we can all use to inspire, create and innovate a future where quality education is accessible to all. 🙌

Keen to dive into the details? Check out the full report by clicking the button below!