Building back better to avert a learning catastrophe: Estimating learning loss from COVID-19 school shutdowns in Africa and facilitating short-term and long-term learning recovery

•Short-term COVID-related learning losses in sub-Saharan Africa are up to one year.•The learning loss could accumulate to 2.8 years of long-term lost learning.•Targeted instruction and structured pedagogy reforms can mitigate learning losses.•Models suggest these reforms could improve pre-COVID learning levels.•Crisis presents historic opportunity to enact reforms to address learning crisis. We model learning losses due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the potential for cost-effective strategies to build back better. Data from Early Grade Reading Assessments in Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia, Tanzania, and Uganda suggest half to over a year’s worth of learning loss. In modeling losses over time, we found that learning deficits for a child in grade 3 could lead to 2.8 years of lost learning by grade 10. While COVID-19 has stymied learning, bold, learning-focused reform consistent with the literature reviewed in this paper—specifically reform on targeted instruction and structured pedagogy—could improve learning even beyond pre-COVID-19 levels.