Master's Thesis

In 2007–2009, Europe went through a major financial crisis. European economies collapsed, unemployment rose, international trade activities decreased... the impact of the crisis had an impact on various domains of society. What was the impact on the school results of European pupils? Economic Policy student César Clinck investigated this in his Master's Thesis.

César: "Based on existing literature, I discovered the potentially negative effects of the crisis on school performance. If parents lose their jobs due to the crisis, for example, there is less money for school materials and tutoring. At the same time, children might look for jobs on the side, which leaves them with less time to spend on their coursework."

César analysed reading and maths results from the PISA test in order to check if this hypothesis was correct. The PISA test is a standardised test sat by 15-year-olds in Europe. César compared the results between 2006 and 2012 in order to look for trends before, during and after the crisis.

There turned out to be a number of trends. César: "The crisis did indeed have a negative effect on pupils’ school results. What's more, girls seemed to be more disadvantaged than boys in times of crisis. Usually, girls get better language results than boys, while boys get better maths results. During the crisis, the gender gap for maths increased, while the gender gap for languages became smaller.