Children and COVID-19 Research Library

By extracting information from Saber 11 Tests taken by high school students close to finishing that educational period in Colombia, the digital divide evolution over time and its determinants are analyzed using a probabilistic model and the calculation of georeferenced concentration indexes. The topic is relevant as previous studies have shown a positive relationship between access to ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies), educational achievement, and economic growth.

This policy brief looks at the impact of COVID-19 on the lives of young people in Vietnam, particularly those from poor households, remote and rural communities, and ethnic minority groups. While Vietnam was successful in containing the spread of COVID-19 during 2020, the recent surge in infection rates and new restrictions are likely to have significant and worsening economic and social impacts for young people. This brief focuses on the broader economic and social impacts of the pandemic, presenting findings from the Listening to Young Lives at Work COVID-19 phone survey conducted in the second half of 2020 (Favara, Crivello et al. 2021). It highlights findings from Vietnam alongside comparative analysis with the other three Young Lives study countries (Ethiopia, India and Peru), to ensure that lessons learned from countries grappling with different stages of the pandemic inform the policy recommendations. Three key areas of impact are covered: interrupted education and inequality in learning outcomes; increased domestic work, particularly for girls and young women; and current and potential longer-term mental health and well-being implications.

Education has been significantly disrupted in Europe and Central Asia due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Unequal access to and varied quality of remote and hybrid learning during the first 18 months of the pandemic have slowed students’ learning and widened equity gaps between students. The pandemic has also significantly impacted the well-being and mental health of students, teachers and parents. UNICEF has advocated for schools to be among the last institutions to close and the first to reopen when it is safe to do so and has called for joint coordination across sectors and partners to keep schools open and children, teachers and families safe. This document, Building resilient education systems beyond the COVID-19 Pandemic: Second set of considerations for school reopening, aims to support education decision-makers at national, local and school levels to plan for education recovery and normalisation following the 2020 school closures and continuing education disruption in 2021. It provides a set of considerations to address the most pressing priorities and mitigate the most significant risks to ensure that all children and young people participate in high-quality, inclusive and safe learning. The Considerations apply to access, learning, well-being, safety in schools and nutrition.

Human capital development is imperative to achieve sustainable economic growth in Iraq. At the heart of Iraq’s human capital crisis is a learning crisis, which is exacerbated by effects of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis on education service delivery. The low levels of human capital development, coupled with limited opportunities to gain job-relevant skills, have translated into worsening economic and social outcomes. To overcome these sources of fragility and spur sustainable human capital driven economic growth, change can only be brought about through a comprehensive reform agenda that addresses the inefficiencies in the education sector and promotes a renewed focus on learning. This Iraq education reform note proposes actionable reforms for key education sector inputs to lead to better learning and skills development.

The COVID-19 crisis highlights how vital childcare is and demonstrates the importance of the often undervalued work of early childhood educators. This mixed methods exploratory study presents how early childhood professionals (n = 75) navigated alternate remote teaching formats and served young children and their families during the COVID-19 crisis in the U.S. Key findings include the personal and professional challenges participants experienced supporting their students’ social-emotional development and serving children with disabilities. Participants also shared reflections on the resilience and adaptability of children, families, and themselves. Recommendations for interdisciplinary research, professional development that builds technological proficiency, and practice that supports children and families through inclusive early childhood models are discussed.

This qualitative study compared school leaders’ perspectives towards their leadership practices in times of emergency caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of twenty-seven school leaders from public and private schools across five Arab countries (Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, and Qatar) participated in the study. Following Turbulence Theory and an ecological framework, the study adopted in-depth semi-structured interviews to respond to the following queries: (1) What were the major actions taken by school leaders during the crisis? (2) What were the resemblances and disparities between school leaders’ practices across the five countries?

The school closures owing to the 2020 COVID-19 crisis resulted in a significant disruption of education provision, leading to fears of learning losses and of an increase in educational inequality. This article evaluates the effects of school closures based on standardised tests in the last year of primary school in the Dutch-speaking Flemish region of Belgium.

Emergency remote teaching and learning (ERTL) represent a critical and challenging time for teachers globally. To understand how Portuguese teachers interpreted their ERTL experiences of the first lockdown, we started by asking: What perspectives do teachers have about ERTL? Answering three open questions made available online between April and May of 2020, a sample of 305 preschool, basic, and secondary school teachers expressed their perspectives on (i) difficulties throughout ERTL; (ii) students’ constraints in participating in ERTL; (iii) the potential and benefits resulting from this exceptional period. Data were analyzed using content analysis. While Portuguese teachers perceived ERTL with concern, a majority also saw it as an opportunity. Workload, work conditions, and time management were the most frequently mentioned difficulties. Regarding students’ constraints, teachers emphasized participation, the role of parents, lack of contact, and autonomy.

This paper analyzes the impact of COVID-19 lockdown measures on children's school resilience. Using an individual fixed-effect linear probability model on Nigeria data, it exploits the quasi-randomness of these measures to estimate their effect on school attendance after the lockdown was lifted. The results show that COVID-19 lockdown measures reduced children's probability of attending school after the school system reopened. This negative impact increased with children's age, reaching a peak among those whose education was no longer compulsory. For schoolchildren in that age group, the negative effect of COVID-19 lockdown measures is likely to be permanent, which, if not reversed, will undermine the quality of the economy-wide future labor force. The paper also finds evidence that in the child marriage-prone North-West part of Nigeria that these measures increased gender inequality in education among children aged 12 to 18. This result suggests that COVID-19 lockdown measures may exacerbate harmful traditional practices such as child marriage.

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 abrupt onset of the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated an unprecedented shift to remote schooling for students across the United States and required many caregivers to take a primary or secondary role as schoolteacher. The goal of this study was to better understand caregivers’ experiences of schooling from home during the spring 2020 COVID-19 closures. Roughly 1,000 caregivers, the majority of whom were White, highly educated mothers, responded to the survey, documenting their children’s daily remote learning experiences and providing insight into the frequency and perceived quality of specialized services and individualized support plans.

What is the social, emotional, and academic impact of attending school remotely rather than in person? We address this issue using survey data collected from N = 6,576 high school students in a large, diverse school district that allowed families to choose either format in fall 2020. Controlling for baseline measures of well-being collected 1 month before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as demographics, high school students who attended school remotely reported lower levels of social, emotional, and academic well-being (effect size [ES] = 0.10, 0.08, and 0.07 standard deviations, respectively) than classmates who attended school in person—differences that were consistent across gender, race and ethnicity, and socioeconomic status subgroups but significantly wider among 10th–12th graders than ninth graders.

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.