Children and COVID-19 Research Library

The COVID-19 pandemic tremendously disrupted ECE in the U.S., closing many private programs and nearly all public preschool and primary classrooms. To understand this impact, this study used multiple strategies, including a nationwide survey of parents; a review of state policies, guidance and resource documents; and scans of media coverage to obtain information on how the pandemic has shaped policy and the ECE experiences of young children and their families across the U.S. beginning in the spring and continuing through the fall of 2020.

This article describes and analyses the corona virus pandemic consequences on Brazilian early childhood education, on small children families' life conditions and on teacher's work, since March 2020, when preventive measures, such as social distancing and schools closure, were adopted by states and municipal authorities in the country. The text covers four main aspects of this situation: (a) economic and social factors affecting families with small children during the pandemic; (b) early childhood education policies and initiatives during the period of school closure; (c) the new roles of teachers; (d) a number of narratives from small children experiences and feelings.

As the COVID-19 virus has spread worldwide, much attention has been paid to its impact on the health and wellbeing of adults, with less attention to how the virus has impacted on young children. This article draws on documentation and video data from a kindergarten in Aotearoa New Zealand. It discusses the working theories of 4 year-old children whose teachers encouraged them to draw, construct images, explain and tell stories about their experiences, ideas and feelings about the virus. A main argument is that children’s working theories about the virus, knowledge of the virus and sense of personal control over keeping themselves safe developed over time. Arts-based and storytelling pedagogy were central in enabling children to communicate with others, to be understood themselves and to extend their own understanding.

This paper examines the role of interprofessional collaboration in the identification and reporting of a child in need. Such collaboration is especially important in the context of the global pandemic caused by the novel Coronavirus disease of 2019, known as COVID-19. The child protection system must have the capacity and resources to respond to increased demands during this time, and early childhood educators serve as an essential link for child protective services in identifying and reporting a child in need. As an effective system to accomplish these two aims requires a working collaboration among its participants, Bronstein’s interdisciplinary collaboration model was used as a framework to interpret this practice. A small-scale qualitative study was conducted that included principals of nursery schools and child protection workers from one region in Estonia.

The outbreaks of Covid-19 influence the Indonesian education nationally, including early childhood education (PAUD). Since the school closures in March, the teachers have attempted to implement the distance learning. This study is conducted in a school in Kendal. The teacher shared her experiences in conducting the learning based on the emergency curriculum. It is found that the government has given the support by publishing the twelve books for the learning at home policy and providing the internet data. Most of the books are about playing with children and positive communication. Parents’ roles in distance learning have greater proportion than the teachers. Parents in this situation have the duties to supervise the learning, to conduct the learning, and to assist teachers in assessment. The teachers construct the weekly lesson plan, communicate the steps of learning process, and evaluate the students’ progress. However, both teachers and parents experience barriers due to the lack of skills in using technology and inability to provide learning materials to support six aspects of child development.

 

This paper examines the remote learning options that countries around the world have made available for pre-primary students and their families while schools are closed during the COVID-19 pandemic. It highlights trends, gaps and emerging good practices that are supported by existing evidence.

The first years of a child’s life are critical to building the foundations of learning that help them succeed in school and beyond. Investment in early childhood education results in positive returns, not only for individual children, but also for building more efficient and effective education systems. Recent analysis estimated that every US dollar spent on pre-primary education results in US$9 of benefits to society.

This brief summarizes the key findings and observations from a report on the remote learning options – be it online, television, radio, paper- or mobile-based – that countries around the world have made available for pre-primary students and their families while schools are closed during the COVID-19 pandemic. The report was informed by the joint UNESCO-UNICEF-World Bank survey of national education responses to COVID-19 and emerging good practices from 10 country case studies.

Drawing from an analysis of responses to COVID affecting the ECCE sector in the US, including the narratives of early childhood educators, this study engages with several questions. These include: How is care work with children constructed and affected by COVID-19? How might current responses and policies be understood through the lens of social citizenship and the collective/the individual? How do these issues reflect the precarity of the ECCE sector? How are embodied and emotional aspects of care work manifesting in early educator/caregiver lives in the time of the pandemic? Who is caring for the caregivers and what care may be needed? How can we re-imagine the care of ourselves, and in relation to an ethics of care for the other?

In this study, we set out to explore how two private, early childhood education and care centres in a small island developing state in the Pacific are coping with schooling during the COVID-19 lockdown period. In particular, we used a case-study research approach to explore teachers’ feelings about the situation and what actions or strategies the centres have devised to continue to support education of young children. We also report on the challenges and opportunities that teachers have experienced in teaching remotely. The case studies suggest that teachers feel worried not only about their personal lives, but also about their professional lives as teachers. The findings also reveal how the two early childhood education and care centres innovate in delivering education in a time of severe crisis. Glimpses of success are visible in terms of making teaching and learning possible and meaningful even with very young children. These findings provide useful insights into teaching and learning during a pandemic.

Extant literature on early childhood educator workplace well-being focuses on the disease model of well-being, with studies mainly addressing stress and burnout. There is a paucity of research conceptualising healthy workplace well-being for educators and an absence of theorising to frame, understand and enhance early childhood educator workplace well-being. This paper reports on Phase 2 of an exploratory sequential mixed methods study, which aimed to explore the individual, relational, and contextual factors influencing healthy workplace well-being. Using Phase 1 interview findings (Author, blind for review), a survey was developed to investigate predictors on workplace well-being in early childhood services in Australia.

By 15 April 2020, more than 1.5 billion students worldwide experienced school closures in an effort to slow the spread of a novel coronavirus, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), during the worldwide coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. These interruptions in formal in-person educational experiences caused adverse consequences on school-age children’s academic outcomes. Using a pre-existing database, this paper calculates changes in children’s reading ability without formal education (i.e., the summer months).

This paper summarizes the recent UNICEF analysis on investing in early childhood education in developing countries. It provides a benefit-cost analysis of investments in pre-primary education in 109 developing low- and middle-income countries and territories, using data from 2008 to 2019.

Young children need comprehensive nurturing care which includes good health, adequate nutrition, early learning opportunities, responsive caregiving, and safety and security. Severe, lifelong impacts can result from deprivations during the early years if children do not have these critical inputs to ensure optimal child development. The World Bank’s Investing in the Early Years framework lays out three pillars to ensure children reach their full potential: i. Children are healthy and well-nourished, especially in the first 1,000 days ii. Children receive early stimulation and learning opportunities and iii. Children are nurtured and protected from stress. In the following three pages, we set out specific risks that children face under each of these pillars due to the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) crisis, together with response options, potential platforms and country examples. While health and nutrition are key elements of the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) emergency response and are more likely to be addressed immediately, empowering parents to provide warm and responsive caregiving and ensuring safety and security of young children and early learning opportunities for young children is essential and risks falling through the cracks.

The first years of a child’s life are critical to building the foundations of learning that help them succeed in school and beyond. Investment in early childhood education results in positive returns, not only for individual children, but also for building more efficient and effective education systems. Recent analysis estimated that every US dollar spent on pre-primary education results in US$9 of benefits to society.

This brief summarizes the key findings and observations from a report on the remote learning options – be it online, television, radio, paper- or mobile-based – that countries around the world have made available for pre-primary students and their families while schools are closed during the COVID-19 pandemic. The report was informed by the joint UNESCO-UNICEF-World Bank survey of national education responses to COVID-19 and emerging good practices from 10 country case studies.