An Early School Closure Needs a Learning Plan!

Adveline Minja

Oct 6

4 min read

When schools Close, How Do We Keep Learning Within Reach?–– How do we Prevent a Temporary Interruption From Becoming a Lasting Gap in Learning?

By Wisdom Thrives | Civic Education. Strategic Commentary. Principled Analysis.

**Learning continuity matters when schools are closed.**

On October 2, 2026, Tanzania’s Ministry of Education directed pre-primary, primary and secondary schools in Mainland Tanzania to close on November 13 instead of December 4. The change is a precaution in response to forecasts of heavy rain associated with El Niño. National examination dates had already been moved. Protecting students, teachers and staff is a sound reason to adjust a calendar. The next question is what happens to the learning that was planned for those weeks.

A Change in Dates is Not Yet a Measure of Learning Loss

Three weeks removed from the school calendar do not automatically mean three weeks of instruction or knowledge have been lost. Schools may cover some lessons earlier, adjust the next term or provide work during closure. WTM and or NFF have not established or predicted what arrangements each school will make. However, the public needs to know which lessons were scheduled, whether students will have time to complete them, and how schools will check what they understand when classes resume.

The answer will differ across households. Some children have books, electricity, a connected device and an adult who can help. Others have none of these, cannot pay for tutoring and may have responsibilities at home. A plan that only tells families to continue learning risks giving the most help to children who already have the most support.

What COVID-19 Taught Us about Reaching Learners

During Tanzania’s roughly three-month school closure in 2020, education authorities and partners provided lessons through radio and television, as well as some home learning materials. In the United States, many schools continued through online classes during longer interruptions. The two responses cannot be treated as identical, and we do not have comparable evidence showing that children in both countries lost the same amount of learning. They do show a shared difficulty: making lessons available is not the same as ensuring that children receive them equitably and understand them fairly.

A Tanzanian research team surveyed 2,240 parents and caregivers after the 2020 closure. 6% reported that their children listened to radio lessons; 5.5% reported watching lessons on television, and fewer than one percent used internet education programs. These results describe that survey, whose respondents were somewhat better off than households the researchers could not reach. They are a warning about reach, not a measure of every child’s learning loss.

The National Bureau of Statistics found in the 2022 census that 38.7 percent of Tanzanian households owned a radio and 27.3 percent owned a television. Those percentages cannot be added or used to count households with neither device because some owned both. In the United States, the Census Bureau estimated that 8.8 percent of households lacked an internet subscription in 2020. These are different measures from different years. Together with the parent survey, they underline a useful question for any continuity plan: which children does the chosen method leave out?

Plan for Participation and Recovery

A stronger response starts before a closure. Schools can identify the essential lessons and use more than one practical way to reach families, including printed work, telephone contact, radio or digital lessons where appropriate. During closure, teachers need a way to find out who is participating and to hear when learners cannot follow a lesson. Safety, distance, disability, language, electricity and connectivity should inform the choice of method; no single channel reaches everyone.

When students return, schools can assess what they actually know and give targeted help during ordinary school hours. That support should not depend on a family’s ability to purchase tutoring. Teachers need time, materials and guidance to do it well. Children may also need help returning to a routine and rebuilding confidence after a disruption.

The joint UNESCO, UNICEF and World Bank recovery framework emphasizes reaching every child, assessing learning, prioritizing foundational skills, improving instruction and supporting well-being. Its value here is a set of questions for local authorities rather than a claim that this November closure has already caused learning loss.

The Public Questions

What learning was planned for the affected weeks? What adjustments will schools make before or after November 13? Who will provide materials and follow-up while children are away? How will schools identify pupils who could not participate, and what help will those pupils receive without additional family expense? Will authorities check progress months after reopening?

El Niño is the immediate reason for this calendar change. Floods, disease outbreaks, earthquakes and other emergencies can also interrupt school. Planning for the future means learning from earlier responses: protect children first, keep learning within reach, and make recovery part of the plan from the beginning.