Delayed Disaster Impacts on Academic Performance of Primary School Children

Abstract

Social disruption caused by natural disasters often interrupts educational opportunities for children. However, little is known about children's learning in the following years. This study examined change in academic scores for children variably exposed to a major bushfire in Australia. Comparisons were made between children attending high, medium, and low disaster‐affected primary schools 2–4 years after the disaster (n = 24,642; 9–12 years). The results showed that in reading and numeracy expected gains from Year 3 to Year 5 scores were reduced in schools with higher levels of bushfire impact. The findings highlight the extended period of academic impact and identify important opportunities for intervention in the education system to enable children to achieve their academic potential.

The impact of a mine fire and smoke event on academic outcomes for primary and secondary school students

“…It is possible that there is a delayed academic achievementpsychological distress relationship among disaster-exposed students. For example, higher exposure to the Black Saturday bushfires in Australia was found to impact on academic performance four years after the fires (Gibbs et al, 2019).…”

“…The pre-post methodology separates the current study from the majority of disaster research published to date, which has been limited to utilising post-event measures. Although our measure of mine fire exposure based on school location reflects earlier research (Gibbs et al, 2019), a more objective measure of exposure based on diarised location (home and school) during the event may have improved the capacity to measure exposure-response relationships.…”

“…In total, enrolment records indicated that there were 2,138 eligible students across the 20 included schools. Consistent with research by Gibbs et al (2019), attendance at school during the mine fire was used as a proxy measure for disaster exposure.…”

“…In Australia, Gibbs et al (2019) found, four years after the 'Black Saturday' bushfires, that higher levels of bushfire impact (i.e. children attending schools and living in communities most impacted by the fires) were associated with delays in academic performance.…”

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“…The Australian Labor Party recently requested additional trauma counselling for students in bushfire zones when they go back to school. The request was based in part on a 2019 study of 25,000 kids, which found that students exposed to the 2009 Black Saturday Australian bushfires were more likely to fall behind in the classroom (Gibbs et al, 2019;Trounson, 2019). That 2009 fire claimed 173 lives.…”