Children and COVID-19 Research Library

The coronavirus pandemic protracted disruption of in-person schooling, sports and other activities leading to obesity that could have long-lasting impact on children’s health. As a result, education has changed dramatically, with the distinctive rise of E-learning. Children are snacking more, exercising less. Their increased screen time, sedentary life style and inadequate sleep anticipated weight gain during Lockdown that could lead to complications. To study the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on increased weight gain in children. A cross-sectional study was conducted from March to May 2021 at tertiary care hospital, Thandalam among 2000 children between the age of 3–15 years on weight gain during COVID-19 Lockdown. A questionnaire requesting demographic and Anthropometric details was circulated. BMI percentiles were calculated, totalled and compared between pre-school closing and school closing period.

The global pandemic of COVID-19 forced trainee teachers from the United Arab Emirates to have virtual field experiences in the field of early childhood education. The various stakeholders, young children, families, preservice teachers, and university faculty hold different perceptions of online teaching formats. The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of trainee teachers and faculty supervisors about online field experiences with young children. The study was done using a qualitative case study within an interpretivist paradigm. Twelve internship students and five supervisors were purposively selected to complete open-ended questionnaires about virtual field experiences.

This paper reports the findings of a descriptive survey research that explored secondary school students' experiences with mathematics remote learning during the Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) school closure. The study involved 367 students of ages 13 to 21 selected from six secondary schools in Kitwe district of Zambia using the cluster random sampling method. Using a mixed-methods research approach, quantitative and qualitative data were merged to provide a comprehensive analysis of the main findings in the context of the existing literature, the government's response to COVID-19 school closure, and the challenges associated with remote learning during that time.

Schools have been central in the debate about COVID-19. On the one hand, many have argued that they should be kept open, given their importance to youngsters and the future of the country, and the effort many countries have made in establishing protocols to keep them safe. On the other hand, it has been argued that open schools further the spread of the virus, given that these are places with large-scale interaction between teenagers and adults accompanying their children, as well as a major source of congestion on public transportation. This study aims to identify the effect of school openings on the spread of COVID-19 contagion. Italy offers an interesting quasi-experimental setting in this regard due to the scattered openings that schools have experienced. By means of a quantitative analysis, employing a synthetic control method approach, we find that Bolzano, the first province in Italy to open schools after the summer break, had far more cases than its synthetic counterfactual, built from a donor pool formed from the other Italian provinces. Results confirm the hypothesis that despite the precautions, opening schools causes an increase in the infection rate, and this must be taken into account by policymakers.

YouTube has become an educational and entertainment tool among Western European families, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study monitored the main channels for children aged 0–5 years by using the social media analysis (SNA) methodology from March 24, 2020 to August 24, 2020. The software used has been FanpageKarma, which allows the collection and interpretation of data. The results indicate not only a growth in the use of such channels during confinement, but also how their expansion is related to the evolution of the COVID-19, reflecting, in turn, the consequences of the government policies adopted. Social distancing generated a greater consumption of recreational content, but not a greater growth in educational content regardless of the country or culture.

Fiji is a small Pacific Island Country with a population of around 902,536 people. The current pandemic of COVID-19 is impacting the well-being, social life, and economic status of the country. Besides, the well-known health difficulties caused by this virus, education is another crucial sector that has been crippled. To prevent the local transmission of such deadly virus the common exercises used globally are lockdowns (stay-in), social distancing, and use of PPEs (facemask, hand glove, and face shield). As a result, students, and teachers at all levels of school have been obliged to quickly adapt to online learning. Therefore, in this paper, an outlook of COVID-19 and its impact on the educational system is discussed.

This study explored the moderating effect of child competence in independent learning in relations between the amount of learning assignment, length of online learning, and parent satisfaction with children’s online learning during COVID-19 imposed class suspension. The data came from an online survey conducted in Hong Kong in February 2020. The respondents were parents (N = 3381, 92.4% mothers) of primary school grades 1–6 students (Primary 1: 801, 24.1%; Primary 2: 739, 22.3%; Primary 3: 578, 17.4%; Primary 4: 547, 16.5%; Primary 5: 406, 12.2%; Primary 6: 250, 7.5%, 60 missing) who engaged in online learning during class suspension.

Since the first identified case on 2 March 2020 until 13 July 2021, more than 1,200 people have lost their lives, meaning that too many boys and girls suffered the tragic and permanent loss of a grandparent, parent, caregiver or loved one. More than 46,860 persons tested positive, implying that and even greater number of loved ones might have fallen ill, making it hard for them to care for family, keep plans or sustain employment. Meanwhile, almost every household in Senegal was affected by restrictions designed to contain the first wave. While the strict measures were largely successful in limiting the spread of the virus, they also affected key sectors of the economy, disrupted supply chains and markets, and affected both the demand for, and availability of, social services. Essentially, COVID-19 impacted almost every aspect of life, particularly in the first quarter of 2020, which we now recognize as the first “leg” in a multi-year, planet-wide marathon to outpace the pandemic. With the closure of schools and disruption of many basic services, child protection mechanisms also lapsed, triggering a crisis for children with considerable socio-economic costs.

At the height of nationwide lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 150 million children younger than 5 years in East Asia and the Pacific were affected. The pandemic brought service provision for young children in many of the 27 countries supported by UNICEF programmes that promote nurturing care and are essential to their optimal development to a standstill. Yet, even before the pandemic, more than 42 million children in the region were at risk of not reaching their developmental potential. Using the latest available evidence, this report summarizes the impact of the pandemic on services essential for young children’s development: For example, that the number of children younger than 5 years visiting community health centres in Viet Nam dropped by 48 per cent; that in Indonesia, more than 50 per cent of households reported not being able to meet their family’s nutritional needs; or that in the Philippines, more than 80 per cent of households experienced a decrease in their household income. Households facing disadvantages before COVID-19 – those with young children, those living in rural and remote areas and low-income households – are in most cases more disproportionally affected by the pandemic.

There are an estimated 281 million international migrants. One in five is a young person and 36 million are children. Worldwide, more than 4 out of 10 forcibly displaced persons are younger than 18, with 33 million children living in forced displacement at the end of 2019 – either as internally displaced persons within their country or abroad as refugees or asylum seekers. Young migrants, refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) across continents represent a unique, untapped pool of talent, ideas, and entrepreneurship. Often resilient, motivated and with experience in overcoming adversity, they have the potential to help solve some of our greatest challenges. Powered by the voices of youth, this report harnesses the technology of U-Report to ask 8,764 young people on the move, aged between 14 and 24, if they felt heard and invited them to share their aspirations to learn and earn. According to this poll, nearly 40 per cent of young people on the move identify education and training as their biggest priorities, and 30 per cent prioritized looking for a job. As the examples in this report highlight, young people on the move are a force for success. But only by creating incentives and opportunities for them to fulfil their aspirations can we turn their passions, energy and hopes into something productive and empowering.

The COVID-19 outbreak has led to an influx of research studies focusing on the new norm of online teaching–learning in higher education. However, much less is known about how this profound shift in pedagogy has impacted school education especially among rural children of India. The present study is an attempt to understand the barriers and challenges that teachers of Public-funded (PF) elementary schools face while teaching online.

Since the proliferation of television sets into households began over half a century ago there has been widespread interest in the impact that viewing has on young children's development. Such interest has grown with the increasing availability of smart phones and tablets. This review examines the literature documenting human social learning and how this learning is impacted when the instructing agent appears on a screen instead of face-to-face. It then explores the shifting nature of screen-based media, with a focus on the increasingly socio-normative manner information is portrayed. It discusses how the changing nature of screen technology might be altering how children interpret what they see, and raise the possibility that this may render prevailing evidence as historical documentation, rather than setting out established developmental milestones that transcend the period in which they were documented.

The disruptive effects of COVID-19 have impacted all sectors of our society including education. This study identified the factors influencing the private schools’ and colleges’ decision to reduce their teaching staff during the COVID-19 lockdown using survey data analyzed using Heckman two-step regression model. The results showed that age, accommodation level, hourly payment rate, tax grade level, money borrowed from government or banks, loan repayment suspension, tax payment deferral, the number of administrative employees, the student-to-administrative employee ratio, and the educational institution’s category were the significant factors affecting teaching employee reduction during the lockdown. The results of this study can help the various education sector stakeholders to take coordinated measures to withstand COVID-19 type of shocks.

This study investigated factors influenced Chinese English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers' non-volitional online teaching intentions based on an extended technology acceptance model (TAM). Facilitating conditions, technology complexity, and perceived anxiety were added to the original TAM as extended variables to examine their influence on Chinese EFL teachers' online teaching. Quantitative data were obtained from 158 teachers in Chinese primary and secondary schools and universities. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM), and the extended TAM was found to be valid in explaining Chinese EFL teachers' online teaching intentions during quarantine. Teachers' behavioral intentions were significantly associated with their attitudes and perceived usefulness of online teaching.