Completion rates in High-stakes Assessments among Disadvantaged Students following COVID-19 School Closures

In Denmark, children from socially disadvantaged backgrounds have lower completion rates in the final examinations at the end of compulsory school than their peers. For example, 20-25 percent of children in foster care do not complete the final examinations in Danish and mathematics. As completion of these examinations is required to obtain exam grades that determine access to further education, such inequality may have serious consequences for children’s opportunities to enroll in youth education and for their outcomes later in life. This paper investigates whether the gap in examination completion rates between socially disadvantaged children and their peers worsened following the COVID-19 school closures. I compare completion rate gaps for the first cohort that took the examinations under normal circumstances after the closures with those for the last pre-pandemic cohort. The analysis focuses on highly disadvantaged children, defined as those who have been in foster care or received preventive measures under the Social Services Act. I find that the completion-rate gap between this group and their peers increased by approximately 5 percentage points following the COVID-19 school closures. This paper thus contributes to the literature with evidence on exacerbation of educational inequalities in schools following the COVID-19 school closures.