The first wave of the pandemic forced all schools in Portugal to suspend in-person classes on March 12, 2020 and shift to online teaching. The Economics of Education Knowledge Center at the Nova School of Business and Economics carried out an online survey targeting all teachers. A total of 1,585 responses were obtained during the first round of the survey (March 25 - April 8, 2020), 2,501 responses in the second round (May 5 - 19, 2020), and 452 responses in the third round (November 11, 2020 - January 21, 2021). The survey gathered information from the beginning of the first lockdown until the period immediately before the second lockdown (see graph 1). 

This study compares the survey responses of public and private school teachers in order to understand how the impacts of school closures and the shift to online teaching are related to students’ socioeconomic condition. In Portugal, socioeconomic differences are strongly associated with the two types of school. For instance, as shown by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s PISA 2018 results, around 38% of Portuguese public school students had a mother with a college degree, while among private school students, the proportion was 49%. 

During the lockdown, online streaming became widespread, particularly in private schools. The percentage of teachers in public schools who taught streaming online classes increased from 22% in March 2020 to 89% in May 2020, and from 63% to 98% for teachers in private schools. This evolution was accompanied by an increase in the provision of complementary study materials from 86% to 98% in public schools and from 83% to 95% in private schools. Public school teachers caught up with those in private schools in terms of the use of third-party materials, with an increase from 39% to 68% in the former and from 51% to 67% in the latter. Although the provision of videos recorded by the teachers themselves increased in both types of schools, this practice remained more frequent in private schools, increasing from 27% to 46% between the first two rounds of the survey.

On average, a greater proportion of public school students than private school students lacked computer and Internet access, according to the teachers surveyed. In March 2020,  25% of public school students lacked access (dropping to 15% in May 2020). For private school students, this figure was 15% (dropping to 6% in May 2020). However, there was great variability across schools. Although the situation improved over time, numerous teachers continued to report a large proportion of students without computer and Internet access. In May 2020, 52% of public school teachers still reported that 10% or more of their students lacked computer and Internet access. For private schools, the percentage was much lower: 16%. Moreover, in May 2020, 6% of public school teachers reported that more than half of their students did not have computer and Internet access. In contrast, only 1% of private school teachers reported this situation.

Teachers’ adoption of streaming online classes was clearly associated with the share of students with computer and Internet access. In March-April 2020, teachers who were offering online classes reported on average that 16% of their students lacked computer and Internet access. Teachers who were not conducting online classes reported that 27% of their students lacked access.

The percentage of teachers who based their assessment on written tests was low during the first lockdown. However, it increased from less than 30% in March-April 2020, to around 35% in May 2020, in both public and private schools. Teachers preferred to use other assessment instruments such as homework, attendance, and participation, with private schools reporting the use of a more diverse set of tools. During the lockdown, public schools slowly approached the pattern of private schools in terms of assessment methods. Homework was the preferred assessment method, and by May, it was used by 85% of public school teachers and 88% of private school teachers. Class attendance and in-class participation were the second and third most frequently used methods, increasing from the first to the second round of the survey.

The start of the new academic year in September 2020 marked the return to in-person classes. However, even after more than two months of classes, teachers expected the learning recovery process to be slow. Public school teachers were more pessimistic than private school teachers: Nearly half of public school teachers believed that this recovery would take two terms or more, while over a third of private school teachers made this prediction.

School closures and the need to adapt to online learning constituted an unprecedented change for both teachers and students. During the first lockdown in Portugal, after in-person classes were suspended and teaching moved online, teachers reported using a range of teaching practices. Additionally, they preferred assessment methods such as homework, attendance, and participation to written tests. Although access to computers and the Internet improved during the lockdown, significant differences between public and private schools persisted, which may be explained by the existing income inequalities already observable prior to the lockdown. After the start of the 2020-21 academic year, when students went back to in-person classes, a large percentage of teachers still expected the learning recovery to take the whole academic year. Since, in the meantime, a new lockdown has occurred, this situation has likely worsened, highlighting the urgent need to tackle learning recovery in the 2021-22 academic year.

OCDE (2019). PISA 2018 Results. https://www.oecd.org/pisa/publications/pisa-2018-results.htm