Children and COVID-19 Research Library

The global disruption to education caused by the COVD-19 pandemic is without parallel and the effects on learning are severe. The crisis brought education systems across the world to a halt, with school closures affecting more than 1.6 billion learners. While nearly every country in the world offered remote learning opportunities for students, the quality and reach of such initiatives varied greatly and were at best partial substitutes for in-person learning. Now, 21 months later, schools remain closed for millions of children and youth, and millions more are at risk of never returning to education. Evidence of the detrimental impacts of school closures on children’s learning offer a harrowing reality: learning losses are substantial, with the most marginalized children and youth often disproportionately affected. The State of the Global Education Crisis: A Path to Recovery charts a path out of the global education crisis and towards building more effective, equitable and resilient education systems.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, efforts have been made to monitor both school closures (and re-opening) and the measures put in place to ensure continuity of learning. These include the Survey of Ministries of Education on National Responses to COVID-19, jointly supported by UNESCO, UNICEF and the World Bank. However, to date, no systematic evidence has been available on how students’ learning is being affected by the disruptions caused by the pandemic or on the impact of education response measures initiated by governments. This report contributes to filling this evidence gap and includes a series of simulations of potential learning losses due to COVID-19 and exploration of their longer-term implications. The analysis is based on the Enabling learning for all framework, which outlines access, engagement and enabling environment as the three crucial enablers for learning, while the simulation assumptions are informed by the evidence on school closures and governments’ education-related responses, collected through the joint survey.

As the pandemic amplified inequalities in education, the need to leverage the potential of rapid technological change and digital connectivity in support of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) became evident. Technology can introduce agile ways of delivering education services, but to leave no one behind and efficiently use resources, it is critical to engage partners as success can only be achieved when governments, the private sector, civil society and other stakeholders work towards a common goal. The Global Education Coalition (GEC), with 200 partners operating in 112 countries, is deploying cross-country missions and conducting large-scale data collection and advocacy. The Coalition is a community committed to responding to the COVID-19 crisis, building resilience, and reimagining education to leave no one behind, in line with SDG 4.

This regional situation analysis provides a snapshot of the educational responses and effects of COVID-19 across Asia and has been undertaken as part of the broader analysis initiated by UNICEF and UNESCO to assess the progress of countries in the region towards the targets of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4.  This regional report is based on the findings of three sub-regional reports (East Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia) and 14 case studies, which in turn are based on a comprehensive desk-review of qualitative and quantitative evidence, complemented by key informant interviews with relevant education officials, local authorities and teachers.  

This sub-regional situational analysis provides a snapshot of the educational responses and effects of COVID-19 across South Asia based on a comprehensive desk-review of qualitative and quantitative evidence, complemented by key informant interviews with relevant education officials, local authorities and teachers across the eight countries in the sub-region (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka).

This sub-regional situational analysis provides a snapshot of the educational responses and effects of COVID-19 across East Asia based on a comprehensive desk-review of qualitative and quantitative evidence, complemented by key informant interviews with relevant education officials, local authorities and teachers across three countries in the sub-region (China, Japan and Republic of Korea).

Due  to  the  COVID-19  Pandemic,  governments  around  the world  risk  losing  years  of  progress  towards  the  Sustainable Development Goal on education (SDG4) in the 2030 Education Agenda if they do not invest sufficiently in education systems during the crisis response and recovery. Education is not only a human right, but also a strategy for ongoing economic revival and  sustainable  development.  Efforts  to  sustain  or  increase economic investment in education should be smart, strong, and leave no one behind, providing targeted stimulus to vulnerable populations at higher risk of dropping out. UNESCO believes that  the  post-pandemic  economic  recovery  is  dependent  on short- and long-term investment in flexible, resilient education systems that can respond quickly and efficiently.

This sub-regional situational analysis provides a snapshot of the educational responses and effects of COVID-19 across East Asia based on a comprehensive desk-review of qualitative and quantitative evidence, complemented by key informant interviews with relevant education officials, local authorities and teachers across three countries in the sub-region (Indonesia, Lao PDR and Viet Nam).

This booklet draws on research-based knowledge generated during the Covid-19 crisis and on previous research on germane topics, to suggest a framework that supports the development of contextually relevant educational strategies to teach during and after the pandemic. The booklet is addressed to education administrators at the school and system level. It was written with the acknowledgment that the pandemic is still ongoing in much of the world, and that interruptions to education in many parts of the world are likely to continue through 2022, and perhaps beyond.  The booklet focuses entirely on education. It does not address health or other policy responses to the pandemic—although obviously the pandemic is, at the root, a public health crisis that has triggered many economic, social, and educational consequences. An appropriate government response should be coherent and multisectoral, so that there is good coordination among various sectoral components of the response.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of Education implemented the Basic Education Learning Continuity Plan, directing schools to switch to online and distance learning modes. The start of School Year 2020-21 was moved to August from June. By September 2020, however, only 23,987,944 basic education students enrolled in public and private schools for SY 2020-21, representing 86.3% of the national enrolment figures from SY 2019-2020. This new normal in education underscores the important role of parents to make sure that the educational goals for their children are met during these challenging times. Enhancing the resilience of children allows them to develop normally despite adverse conditions brought about by disaster experiences. This Manual was developed as a resource for teachers to train parents and caregivers of elementary school-aged children and build their capacity to provide psychosocial support to their children during and in the aftermath of disaster experiences. The Manual consists of a framework to guide teachers, learning packs on the different modules covered in the program, and 8 modules detailing step-by-step conduct of the training sessions.

Declared a global pandemic on 11 March 2020 by the World Health Organization (WHO), COVID-19 has had far-reaching impacts on every facet of life around the world, exacerbating pre-existing  inequalities  and  negatively  impacting  on  vulnerable  and  disadvantaged  populations  the  most.  Learning  continuity  has  been  disrupted  by  school  closures,  generating an unprecedented situation worldwide. According to UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) data collated in July 2020, over 18.6 million children in pre-primary education in forty-eight Sub-Saharan African countries and 4.4 million pre-primary teachers – eighty-five per cent of whom were women – in twenty-four countries in the Asia-Pacific region were affected by school or centre closures. Recognizing the possible severe and detrimental impact that COVID-19 might have on ECE personnel and their practices, UNESCO Bangkok and Dakar teamed up with several partners to undertake regional surveys in the Asia-Pacific and Sub-Saharan Africa from April to July 2020. Based on the regional surveys, this report features eight key findings and three key messages to better understand ECE personnel’s needs and to identify possible responses to support them.

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.

 

This report highlights a very important topic for the world and for society: inclusive education as a significant issue in the context of the global Education 2030 Agenda and special education to safeguard the rights and interests of per-sons with disabilities share a common focus on the equal access to education for students with disabilities among disadvantaged groups. UNESCO has been advocating for the global com-munity to work together to find ways to remove barriers to learning for persons with disabilities and to provide them with appropriate conditions for equal access to education. Evidence–based data received during interviews with over 50 educators in Rwanda and Mauritius provided the opportunity to identify gaps, les-sons learned, and good practices in the target countries, and helped to articulate the policy recommendations to encourage innovative and pervasive use of ICT and ODL solutions for the education of students with disabilities.

The research was guided by the following objectives: outline the main contributions of institutions in facilitating integration of information and communication technology (ICT) in SEN education during the pandemic crisis; examine the relevance, efficiency, and effectiveness of technological innovations employed in SEN education; analyse the major barriers impeding the implementation of ODL solutions in SEN education; determine the promising innovative technological practices and whether they are potentially sustainable and replicable in a post-COVID environment; propose policy recommendations to promote and encourage innovative and pervasive use of ODL solutions for learners with disabilities as a post-COVID recovery plan.

This study will describe the opportunities and challenges related to the utilization of information and communication technology (ICT) to create more inclusive learning environments in Colombia. It will present and ana-lyse key features of the national policy and one or two emerging initiatives. In each case, it will review, for each target population, accessible ICT products and services in formal and non-formal educational settings.