Children and COVID-19 Research Library

The COVID-19 pandemic has created the largest disruption of education systems in history, affecting nearly 1.6 billion school-age children in more than 190 countries. Already last year, 250 million school-age children being out of school, the world was facing a “learning crisis”. But now with the COVID-19 pandemic, this crisis could turn into a generational catastrophe. While many children will continue with their education once schools reopen, others may never return to school. Current estimates indicate that 24 million children will never return to the classroom and among those, disproportional number of girls. To avert this crisis, we need to reimagine how we deliver good quality and inclusive education to the world children. Among other things, this calls for urgent investments in school health and nutrition programmes and create the conditions for children to lead healthy lives. This also includes health and nutrition literacy offered through the curriculum and through counselling in the school health services which provides young people with knowledge, skills, values, culture and behaviours they need to lead healthy, empowered lives.

Adolescent girls' education contributes to a virtuous cycle that has proven positive impact on sustainable development. This report aims to examine progress and persistent gaps in our efforts to achieve gender equality in and through education since the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action in 1995, and to identify priority actions to be implemented within the Beijing+25 process, the Generation Equality Forum's Action Coalitions, and the Sustainable Development Goals. It shows the importance of adolescent girls' education and provides recommendations for collective action – in particular on three priority levers: Comprehensive sexuality education; the participation of adolescent girls in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM); and the development of adolescent girls' leadership – drawing in particular on consultation processes among international organizations, civil society and adolescent girls in the run-up to the Forum. In all areas, specific levers, intersectoral approaches and multi-stakeholder partnerships are promoted.

The UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN) joins together cities from across the world around the common objective of harnessing the potential of culture and creativity for a sustainable future. The COVID-19 pandemic is affecting people everywhere, and the culture sector has in many ways come to a standstill – cultural events, cinema, theatre and music performances have been cancelled, international tourism has largely ceased, restaurants and markets have closed, amongst others. This has not only impacted the sectors concerned, but also the public, which tends to turn to cultural products and services for education, entertainment, leisure, personal development, or social engagement. While this undoubtably has a serious impact on the economic viability of the cultural sector, the sector's fundamental creativity and ability to inspire social connection remains intact. The information submitted by over 90 Creative Cities from 44 UNESCO Member States shows how cities have come together to nurture new ideas and projects by connecting people to culture and creativity during the pandemic.

According to this new report published by UNESCO, UNICEF and the World Bank, schoolchildren in low- and lower-middle-income countries have already lost nearly four months of schooling since the start of the pandemic, compared to an average of six weeks among high-income countries. Compiling data from surveys on national education responses to COVID-19 from 149 countries between July and October, the report also finds that schoolchildren in low- and lower-middle income countries were less likely to have access to remote learning or to be monitored on a day-to-day basis by teachers and were more likely to have delays in their schools reopening.

This Annex is intended to help policy makers and educators with making decisions on running schools as safely as possible during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the forefront of all considerations and decisions should be the continuity of education for children for their  overall  well-being,  health  and  safety.  Nonetheless,  all  decisions  will  have  implications  for  children,  parents  or  caregivers,  teachers and other staff and more broadly, their communities and societies. This document was developed with input from the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) of Experts on Educational Institutions and COVID-19 and experts from WHO, UNICEF, and UNESCO, who jointly reviewed the latest evidence to develop this interim guidance, which considers equity, resource implications, and feasibility.

Education systems around the world continue to grapple with the complex decisions of when and how to reopen schools for in-person learning following widespread closures due to the COVID 19 pandemic.1 Many countries closed schools along with other widespread restrictions as an immediate response to the increased spread of COVD-19. But school closures have had increasingly clear negative impacts on child health, education and development, family income and the overall economy.

This paper aims to assess to what extent education has been addressed in massive governments' fiscal responses being taken since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and to make a case for sustained investment in education and training.

Education systems around the world continue to grapple with the complex decisions of when and how to reopen schools for in-person learning following widespread closures due to the COVID 19 pandemic. Experiences in most high-income countries show no measurable impact of school reopening on increasing community transmission rates, while within primary school settings in particular there has been limited transmission among children or between children and adults. Emerging evidence drawn from Eastern and Southern Africa also suggests that schools have not been associated with significant increases in community transmission. As more countries are re-opening schools, lessons are emerging on what is working. These lessons are shared in this supplement piece covering the same areas that were covered in the Framework for Re-opening Schools.

COVID-19 unprecedented disruption to education has the potential to roll back substantial gains made on girls’ education in recent decades, with broader immediate and longer-term effects on the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, including those related to poverty reduction, health and well-being, inclusive quality education and gender equality. The guide, developed by the Malala Fund, Plan International, UNESCO, UNGEI and UNICEF, aims to help policymakers and practitioners in ministries of education and their partners address the gender dimensions of the pandemic-related school closures. It provides targeted recommendations to ensure continuity of learning while schools are closed, and to establish comprehensive, timely and evidence-based plans for reopening schools in a way that is safe, gender-responsive and child-friendly.

In the context of the Global Education Coalition, formed by UNESCO to support governments in their educational response to COVID-19, UNESCO has collaborated with partners to develop a COVID-19 Response Toolkit in Education. The goal of these chapters is to support countries in their educational response to COVID-19 by providing practices and examples, concrete steps for intervention, and tactical action checklists. This particular chapter focuses on the topic of re-enrolment.

Global school closures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic present an unprecedented risk to children’s education, protection and well-being. Schools do much more than teach children how to read, write and count. They also provide nutrition, health and hygiene services; mental health and psychosocial support; and dramatically reduce the risk of violence, early pregnancy and more. And it’s the most vulnerable children who are the hardest hit by school closures, and we know from previous crises that the longer they are out of school, the less likely they are to return.When deciding whether to reopen schools, authorities should look at the benefits and risks across education, public health and socio-economic factors, in the local context, using the best available evidence. This policy brief aims to inform the decision-making process regarding school reopening, support national preparations and guide the implementation process, as part of overall public health and education planning processes. The guidelines outline six key priorities to assess the readiness of those schools and inform planning.

UNESCO has been monitoring education responses to COVID-19 globally, collecting and analyzing information and facilitating policy dialogue and experience-sharing. Key policy issues include the timing, the conditionsand processesfor school reopening. The effectiveness of these policy decisions and reopening strategies will depend on the level of preparedness of the education system in terms of infrastructure (health and sanitary measures); teaching staff (ability to provide both psychosocial and academic support); pedagogical preparedness (offering remedial action and alternative modalities to meet learning objectives); learners, families andcommunities (ability and willingness to return to school and readiness to continue learning).

La crise du COVID-19 a mis au premier plan la nécessité de mettre l’accent sur l’équité et l’inclusion en matière d’apprentissage. Le défi le plus difficile à relever dans le contexte de la crise actuelle est de veiller à ce que l’équité en matière d’accès et d’apprentissage ne soit pas freinée. Étant donné la nature de la crise, tous les pays doivent apporter leur soutien aux enfants les plus vulnérables pour éviter qu’ils ne soient davantage marginalisés et s’assurer qu’ils continuent de s’investir dans leur éducation. L’équité et l’inclusion doivent continuer d’être un des objectifs clés de la gestion de la crise.