Children and COVID-19 Research Library

Protecting children from COVID-19 in school requires an effort from the entire community, including national and local governments, school administrators, teachers, parents/caregivers and students. To reopen schools as safely as possible and keep them open during the COVID-19 pandemic, consistent implementation of effective strategies to prevent COVID-19 transmission during all school-related activities is critical. This guide outlines practical tips to support school administrators in implementing safety measures and creating a safer learning environment for children. The decision to reopen schools should be guided by the best interests of children and the guidance of the local government and public health authorities in each country.

Prior to COVID-19, close to 129 million children in the Asia and the Pacific region received school meals, primarily through government-led, national school feeding programmes. Due to COVID-19 school closures, many of these children stopped receiving on-site school meals. Although some countries introduced alternative solutions, school-age children are expected to have been negatively affected by this disruption. Against this backdrop, the World Food Programme (WFP) Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific (RBB) commissioned Oxford Policy Management to undertake a review of adaptations to on-site SF in order to inform policymaking and programming in the context of the new reality. This research sought to answer the key research question through an emphasis on gathering data primarily from six countries in the region where WFP supports SF programmes in different capacities: Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Nepal, Philippines and Sri Lanka.

Globally, over 1.5 billion children have had their schools closed due to COVID-19 since early 2020.1 For the first time in history, an entire generation of children have had their education disrupted. In Cambodia, more than 3 million children have been out of school for over most of the past year, with two major waves of schools closures since March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.2 The loss, on average, of nearly 10% of children’s expected total lifetime schooling will not only have caused significant learning losses, but has put many children at risk of dropping out of school entirely.

During a crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic, communication is key to develop and sustain the effective and trusted relationship between students, teachers and parents/caregivers. Credible and consistent two-way communication ensures a clear understanding of messages, facilitates ongoing dialogue and enables collective decision-making with the active involvement of students, teachers and families. School administrators play a large role in shaping communication and engagement among schools, families, and teachers to support children’s continued participation in quality and inclusive learning. Adopting principles listed in this guide will help school administrators to design the right approach in building communication strategies and plans, which encourages parents/caregivers, teachers and students to work together and create an enriching learning environment amidst the challenging situation.

This policy brief looks at the impact of COVID-19 on the lives of adolescents and young people in Peru as they transition into adulthood, focusing on how widening inequalities are hitting those from disadvantaged backgrounds hardest. Peru continues to suffer one of the highest per capita COVID-19 death rates in the world, despite an initial strict national lockdown between March and June 2020, and subsequent regional lockdowns between July and September 2020. A second set of regional lockdowns, and new related restrictions, have been introduced since January 2021, in response to an even more devastating second wave of infections. This brief investigates the broader economic and social impacts of the pandemic, presenting policy recommendations based on findings from the Listening to Young Lives at Work COVID-19 phone survey, conducted in the second half of 2020. It focuses on five key areas of impact: interrupted education and inequality in learning outcomes; unequal access to decent jobs; worsening mental health and well-being; specific implications for girls and young women, including increased domestic work burdens; and increasing risk of domestic violence. It is part of a series of national policy briefs drawing on findings from our 2020 COVID-19 phone survey.

Despite numerous legal and political challenges over the past decade, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) (2010) has been integrated into the health system of the United States (U.S.) and has played an important role in improving child health in this country by increasing access to health care for millions of children. The ACA has also provided a “healthcare lifeline” to children and families during the COVID-19 pandemic. This policy brief reviews the legal status of the ACA, explores the impact of COVID-19 on children's access to health insurance, discusses recent legislation supporting child health, and considers the future status of child health insurance coverage and access to care.

This note discusses early results from a distance education program on foundational numeracy for primary school students in Nepal during Coronavirus (COVID-19) evaluated in a randomized trial. The trial included 3,700 households with children in public school (grades 3-5). It provided support for foundational numeracy through mobile phone-based tutoring. The trial tested delivery through public school teachers and also through NGO facilitators. It led to a 30 percent increase in foundational numeracy, with teachers being slightly more effective at producing learning gains than NGO facilitators. These results suggest that instructional support through mobile phones can be a high-access and low-cost approach to providing instruction at scale.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had an unprecedented, disastrous impact on the ability of people to balance work and care for their children and families. This policy brief is an outcome of a collaboration between Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO), UNICEF and the International Labour Organization (ILO) in advocating for family-friendly policies to protect and ensure social protection and care systems that are good for children, good for women and good for the economy. The policy brief features an increased focus on the well-being and working conditions of caregivers in the informal economy and their children’s development in low- and middle-income countries. The brief highlights the need to consider sustainable policy and protection responses instead of quick, short-term measures for more gender-transformative and equitable solutions. This represents a critical gap which, if not addressed, will make our goals to tackle child poverty, hunger and gender inequality – and fulfil the SDGs – impossible to achieve. 

Human capital development is a critical determinant of economic growth, equity, and prosperity, but outcomes in this domain are worryingly low inLebanon, risking the future of generations of children. Lebanese children lag behind their peers in human capital development—measured accordingto the World Bank (2020c) Human Capital Index—suggesting that the future productivity of the labor force and the country’s trajectory for equitablegrowth is at risk (World Bank 2020b). The Human Capital Index indicates that children born in Lebanon today will reach, on average, only 52 percentof their potential productivity when they grow up. This is lower than the average estimates for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region(57 percent) and upper-middle-income countries (56 percent). Lebanon’s poor performance on the Human Capital Index is largely attributed to theeducation outcomes calculated for the index.

In the context of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic response, WHO identifies young people as a priority target audience with specific concerns, experiences and behaviours. This policy brief provides relevant insights from behavioural evidence and a set of behavioural considerations for those promoting COVID-19 preventive behaviours among young people. Designers of programmes and initiatives targeting youth may find it helpful to refer to the youth-specific barriers and drivers identified in this policy brief and to prioritize these for testing when planning initiatives targeted at young people.

This policy brief focuses on the impact of COVID-19 on the lives of vulnerable girls and young women in India, particularly in relation to the combined pressures of interrupted education, increased domestic work, and widespread stresses on household finances. It analyses the current and potential long-term impact on mental health and well-being, increasing domestic violence and risks of early marriage and parenthood.

Students around the world have lost substantial instructional time owing to abrupt school closures since theoutbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to UNESCO monitoring, in 2020, school buildings werecompletely closed for an average of 15 weeks (4  months) worldwide (UNESCO, 2021a). Counting partialclosures, schools were shut on average for 26 weeks (6.5 months) worldwide, equivalent to almost two-thirds of a typical school year. In response, education systems have deployed remote and hybrid learning modalities to ensure continuity of learning. These efforts have yielded mixed results, with varying degrees of improvement and reduction in inequalities in student learning depending on the modalities and implementation methods of the different education programmes. As a result, almost all students needsome catch-up learning, compelling education systems to deploy and scale up targeted interventions quicklyto help pupils bridge their learning gaps and improve learning.This paper draws key messages to help policy and practice to mitigate the disruptive effects of the COVID-19 crisis on student learning. It addresses the growing concerns of both policy and decision-makers aboutstudents’ disengagement from – or loss of – learning owing to the pandemic, as   reflected in low levels of achievement at   checkpoints compared to expected learning levels, reduced rates of completion and/orgrowing disparities in learners' achievement. If policy-makers do not react quickly by providing additionaland relevant support to address students’ learning needs, especially those from marginalized groups,millions of children and youth may not return to the classroom, and may eventually drop out of school.

 

School closures and learning loss during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic can have a long-term negative impact on the current cohort of school children. Global evidence from past health and disaster-related emergencies show that the impact extends well beyond the period of the disaster or pandemic. It is also likely to affect the children’s economic potential and productivity in adulthood, thus undermining the country’s competitiveness. This policy note analyzes key issues related to the current schooling and learning situation and proposes policy options to prepare for in-person schooling when this is possible. Two nationwide surveys in the Philippines provide a snapshot of the conditions of education in the country: the High Frequency Monitoring (HFM) Household Survey carried out in December 2020 and the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Low Income Household Panel and Economic (HOPE) Survey targeting poor and near-poor households carried out in October 2020. The key issues emerging from these data and policy recommendations are summarized in this report.

This study is part of a cross-country series designed to share emerging findings in real time from qualitative interviews with adolescents and school teachers in the context of covid-19. Our sample for this study was purposefully selected from an ongoing baseline GAGE impact evaluation study, and includes two cohorts: younger adolescents (10–14 years) and older adolescents (15–19 years), all of whom are in-school (grades 7 and 8). Adolescent respondents were drawn from both urban and rural schools in Chittagong and Sylhet divisions of Bangladesh. The objectives of the research are as follows: 1) to understand adolescents’ experiences of transition from childhood to adulthood, and to identify differences in their experiences by age, gender, disability and geographic location; 2) to identify adolescents’ knowledge of covid-19, and how the pandemic response has affected adolescent lives. To inform the pandemic response, this study aims to understand adolescents’ knowledge, perceptions and practices during the covid-19 pandemic, their challenges and worries, and the coping mechanisms they are using to deal with the evolving situation.

This policy brief draws on a qualitative study that uses a gender perspective to investigate the notion of resilience among a cohort of young women and young men who grew up in poverty in five rural and urban communities in Ethiopia, and who are part of the broader Young Lives longitudinal study of 3000 children and young people in the country.  It asks why some children seem to fare well as they transistion to adulthood, despite the challenges and obstacles they had faced, whilst others do less well.