Children and COVID-19 Research Library

This guide aims to provide guidance to program teams on how to plan an integrated, participatory process for safe school reopening applicable in all contexts across the humanitarian-development nexus. The guide has been developed in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic which led to many school closures and offers a unique multi-sectoral opportunity for governments and school communities to build back better and strengthen the resilience of their education systems. The guide builds on the UN Framework for Reopening Schools, and provides concrete actions that can be taken to operationalise these global policy recommendations.

Social distancing requirements associated with COVID-19 have led to school closures. In April, 192 countries had closed all schools and universities, affecting more than 90 percent of the world's learners: over 1.5 billion children and young people. Closures are expected to reduce schooling and lead to future losses in earnings. Starting from the assumption that every additional year of schooling translates to 8 percent in future earnings, this paper estimates and confirms the loss in marginal future earnings on the basis of a four-month shutdown. This paper also estimated the losses by level of education. The findings show that the school closures reduce future earnings. It is also likely that students from low-income countries will be affected most, where the earning losses will be devastating. These estimates are conservative, assuming closures end after four months, with schools re-opening in the new academic year, and that school quality will not suffer.

This dashboard shows country-level data  on the impact of COVID-19 on national education systems. The COVID-19 page provides an overview of the impact caused by the current outbreak on different aspects of education and learning.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the world was living a learning crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic now threatens to make education outcomes even worse.

This report describes national policy and strategy responses for ensuring educational continuity in the context of widespread school closures implemented as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study focuses on a selection of high-income and low-income contexts. The evidence highlights the current, and rapidly changing status of national policy and strategy responses to date. The report examines key themes emerging form policy and strategy response and reflects on these: which are working, and which are not working so well? The nature of the evidence and material available at this stage of the crisis makes firm conclusions hard to reach. Despite this the report concludes with a set of recommendations supported by the literature as it stands.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an unprecedented situation whereby schooling has been disrupted for almost 1.6 billion children and youth as governments enforce total or partial closures of schools in efforts to contain the spread of the virus. Higher education institutions have also suspended classes. As of late April, UNESCO estimates that 91% of those enrolled in formal education programmes have been affected. The closure of schools, universities, technical and vocational training institutes has also affected refugee learners and students. In these challenging times, displaced and refugee students are at a particular disadvantage and there is a risk that progress in increased enrolment may be eroded. The suspension of school feeding programmes could affect the nutrition and health status of refugee children and youth. Lessons drawn from other pandemic responses that included extended school closures have shown that girls are less likely to return to school and are at greater risk of falling behind1. As many governments move to at-home learning modalities, many refugees are disadvantaged as they experience uneven access to distance education and online learning opportunities and hardware, and do not have access to support services such as language classes.

This document aims to provide some key considerations for the leadership of education clusters and humanitarian coordination groups in order to have a more inclusive and localized response to the COVID-19 global emergency.

At this critical time, it is vital that international governments and donors increase funding to enable children in Uganda to continue learning. The closure of 51,000 institutions to prevent COVID-19 has left 15 million children out of school and facing increased risk of violence, exploitation and abuse. Closing schools must not mean suspending learning. There are evidenced home, community and media-based methods to ensure that children can keep learning and safe. Funding is urgently needed to ensure that these are in place from the start of the response before the opportunity closes.

This rapid review focusses on efforts to mitigate the educational impact of previous disease outbreaks, concentrating on school-age learners. It follows two companion papers that reviewed broader secondary effects and attempts to mitigate them (Rohwerder, 2020; Kelly, 2020). It aims to inform the education sector’s responses to the COVID-19 crisis, although there are important differences between previous disease outbreaks and the COVID-19 situation.

The purpose of the INEE QELO Mapping Project is to identify and “map” (code, analyze, describe) existing social emotional learning (SEL) and psychosocial support (PSS) measurement/assessment tools, as well as guidance documents, being used in the international Education in Emergencies (EiE) sector with the broad aim of informing policy that is grounded in a shared understanding of learning outcomes and monitoring. The work is a priority of the Quality and Equitable Learning Outcomes (QELO) work stream within INEE’s Education Policy Working Group (EPWG) and is funded by Porticus.

This paper assesses that it is time to de-school education, free the school from curricular constraints and empower it to be a laboratory of life that provides a prepared environment which is a Montessori concept meaning that the environment can be designed to facilitate maximum independent learning and exploration by the child and adolescent, therefore that skills and challenges converge, organizing experiences that lead to knowledge.

Physical distancing caused by COVID-19 has had a significant impact on daily life throughout the world. In this sense, Cuba is no exception. Children are a vulnerable population due to the characteristics of their subjective development. The United Nations International Children’s Fund (UNICEF, 2020a) has warned that children and families across the globe will suffer the consequences of the economic destruction caused by the pandemic. UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore has said this situation is generating a world economic crisis and in order to protect childhood during the COVID-19 crisis, international collaboration would be essential, since 99% of children and young people under 18 are currently living with movement restrictions (UNICEF, 2020a). Cuba has joined the call by the United Nations Secretary General to ensure and prioritize education, health and safety for all children and adolescents during this pandemic (UNICEF, 2020b), and expresses concern about the consequences this situation has and will have for the well-being of the youngest ones.

COVID-19 has had an unprecedented impact on school education. It has affected a large number of children across states, class, caste, gender and region. The shutting down of schools and the decision of shifting traditional classrooms to digital platforms is not only increasing learning inequality among children, but also pushing a large number of children out of school due to the digital divide. Other than learning, the absence of schooling would also have a long-lasting effect on the health and nutrition of children. The role of the budget in the current situation as well as beyond the pandemic is very crucial to ensure inclusive education for all. This policy brief highlights some of the issues associated with school closures which need immediate attention. It also suggests some short-term policy measures that can be implemented in the coming Union and State budgets. However, the overall direction of allocations should not only be limited to addressing issues arising from the pandemic but should go beyond. COVID-19 has created an opportunity for governments to learn valuable policy lessons to deal with such situations and also to revamp the system so that it is better equipped to deal with them. In this context, the policy brief has also put forward a set of long-term measures that the government should implement in the due course of time.

This research brief is one of a series that explores the impact of COVID-19 on education. It focuses on the potential parental role in learning and its association with foundational reading and numeracy skills. Fifty-three per cent of children in low- and middle-income countries cannot read and understand a simple text by the end of primary school age. In low-income countries, the learning crisis is even more acute, with the ‘learning poverty’ rate reaching 90 per cent. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, 191 countries have implemented countrywide school closures, affecting 1.6 billion learners worldwide. In India alone, 320 million students from pre-primary to tertiary level are affected by school closures. In sub-Saharan Africa, 240 million are affected. With children currently not able to study in classrooms, the importance of learning at home is amplified and the task of supporting children’s learning has fallen on parents at a much larger rate. This is a significant burden, particularly for those who are also teleworking and those with limited schooling themselves.