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Children and COVID-19 Research Library

UNICEF Innocenti's curated library of COVID-19 + Children research

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226 - 240 of 771
Learning recovery and addressing the learning crisis in the Asia Pacific: policy brief
Institution: UNESCO, *UNICEF
Published: June 2022

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted education for approximately 1.2 billion students across the Asia-Pacific, and forced the closure of many schools, precipitating a transition towards remote learning, albeit with uneven access and quality, and threatening to deepen the ‘learning crisis’ that already existed, particularly for the most vulnerable learners. As education systems in the Asia-Pacific seek to recover the learning loss due to the pandemic and address the broader learning crisis, it is incumbent on governments to identify appropriate recovery strategies in the short term. Also, governments need to support education system transformation so that all learners reach minimum proficiency in numeracy and literacy and acquire competencies needed to fulfil their potential –personal, social and economic. Learning recovery strategies will differ across the region, not the least because schools were fully or partially closed1for different lengths of time -for example, India (82 weeks), Indonesia (77 weeks), and Bangladesh (73 weeks). Other countries saw shorter closures, such as: Vanuatu (4 weeks), Papua New Guinea (6 weeks), and the Solomon Islands (7 weeks).

Training and supporting teachers in adapting to the post-pandemic era in the Asia Pacific: policy brief
Institution: UNESCO, *UNICEF
Published: June 2022

Teachers are the most important actors in improving students’ learning outcomes and thus in addressing a learning crisis in the region. Moreover, the unprecedented and extensive school closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have affected about 43 million teachers in school education in the Asia-Pacific region. These teachers were at risk of losing their jobs due to budget cuts, they had to address the new challenge of teaching remotely, as well as worrying about their own and their families’ health and well-being. Throughout the school closures, teachers continued to teach under extremely fluid and trying conditions: increased workloads, having to use new and unfamiliar technologies without adequate training, experiencing a lack of materials for online instruction, high levels of physical and mental stress, and insufficient support.

 

Experimental evidence on learning using low-tech when school is out
Institution: Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies
Published: June 2022
School closures occurred extensively during the COVID-19 pandemic, and occur in other settings, such as teacher strikes and natural disasters. The cost of school closures has proven to be substantial, particularly for households of lower socioeconomic status, but little evidence exists on how to mitigate these learning losses. This paper provides experimental evidence on strategies to support learning when schools close. We conduct a large-scale randomized trial testing two low-technology interventions— SMS messages and phone calls—with parents to support their child in Botswana. The combined treatment improves learning by 0.12 standard deviations, which translates to 0.89 standard deviations of learning per US$100, ranking among the most cost-effective interventions to improve learning. This study developed remote assessment innovations, which show robust learning outcomes. Its findings have immediate policy relevance and long-run implications for the role of technology and parents to support education provision during school disruptions.
Education in emergencies financing in the wake of COVID-19: time to reinvest to meet growing needs
Institution: Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies
Published: June 2022
This study provides a detailed assessment of the state of EiE funding, including the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. It reviews financial data from a range of EiE funding modalities, including humanitarian assistance and development cooperation. In addition to presenting the key funding trends since 2016, it pinpoints the critical factors that influence EiE funding over time, with a view to identify what actions are required to address the noted gaps.
The impact of COVID-19 school closures on child protection and education inequalities in three humanitarian contexts

On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. In response, governments around the world took the unprecedented step of closing all schools as a way to curb the spread of the COVID-19 virus. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) estimates that school closures impacted almost 1.6 billion learners across 169 countries. Most children in this study experienced school closures, or partial or temporary re-openings, well into 2022. Education systems had very unequal capacities to respond to school closures with remote learning and support to children and families. The most common format remote learning took was online learning (91 per cent), yet 1.3 billion of the 1.6 billion students out of school had no internet connection at home—let alone a device to learn on—and internet literacy was extremely low among students, teachers, and parents.10 Moreover, the majority of the estimated 300 million learners with online access were in high- or middle-income countries. Children in humanitarian settings were among the least likely to be able to access digital education. This digital divide exacerbated education inequalities everywhere. In low-income and humanitarian settings, school closures also amplified the pre-existing learning and school access crisis and cut children off from the protective services schools often provide.

Analysis of learning in Armenia
Institution: The World Bank
Published: June 2022
The education sector in Armenia has challenges with low learning levels and additional pressures imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The World Bank’s human capital index (HCI) shows that a child who starts school at age four in Armenia can expect to complete 11.3 years of schooling by the age of 18. An analysis of learning outcomes factoring in what children actually learn, however, shows that expected years of schooling equate to only eight years. This results in a learning gap of 3.3 years. The COVID-19 pandemic may have exerted additional hurdles to improve learning outcomes. Due to the pandemic, Armenia risks losing 0.3 learning-adjusted year of schooling as calculated by World Bank simulations. This translates to an average annual earning loss of US$6,457 per student. Additionally, around 26 percent of children at late primary-school age in Armenia are not proficient in reading.2 This, also known as learning poverty, means being unable to read and understand a short, age-appropriate text by age 10. Learning poverty in Armenia is 17.2 percentage points worse than the average for the ECA region (8.9 percent on average). The main motivation of the report is to analyze critical human capital dynamics that play into labor productivity, especially that of learning and its determinants. Armenia’s performance in international assessments have been relatively below average but slightly improving over the last decade. This report is also exploring the overall performance of Armenia in terms of learning, where any improvements have occurred and whether they are timely and sufficient in ensuring sustainable growth and productivity. The report will first look at the background of the education system in Armenia including education expenditures and explain the methodology of the study; then analyze the quality of education; focus on differences in student performance across regions followed by factors associated with overall learning outcomes. Finally, it will present recommended ways forward based on the analysis.
Two years after: saving a generation
Institution: *UNICEF, The World Bank, UNESCO
Published: June 2022

In the last two years, the COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc in Latin America and the Caribbean. The region has suffered a triple curse, as it faced the largest combined impact in health, economic and educational terms. The disproportionate impact of the pandemic on people´s lives, livelihoods, and human capital formation represents, without doubt, one of the worst crises in LAC’s history. As we seek to rebuild better and foster more inclusive and sustainable growth, the main concern, nonetheless, is not the heavy toll of the pandemic, but the future of an entire generation of children and young people who have endured this massive shock. This report is the first evidence-based assessment of this educational catastrophe in Latin America and the Caribbean. The report intends to systematically document the impact that COVID-19 has had on the region’s education sector two years after. The 24 months since the outbreak of the pandemic in March 2020 is described sequentially, focusing firstly on the features of the “triple curse”, and then on the direct impact on schooling, learning and skills development. The report also addresses significant cross-sectoral impacts, namely those related to digital and transferable skills.

Distance learning in Cameroon: case study of private nursery school children's experiences and challenges amidst COVID-19 lockdown

AUTHOR(S)
Emela Achu Fenmachi; Rachel Ogene Awah Edah

Published: June 2022   Journal: New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies
This article analyses data from a study that explored distance learning teaching and nursery school children's experiences in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Douala, Cameroon. Following the spread of COVID-19 to Africa, the Cameroon Government placed emphasis on the impact of the pandemic on the socio-economic sector and actions to support this sector. There has been no reported research on the effects of the pandemic on the early childhood education sector and how children have experienced it. This article discusses distance learning techniques employed by teachers from a private nursery school and the views and feelings of young children whose teacher encouraged them to draw and tell stories about their experiences. Engaging in such conversations empowered and encouraged children to verbalise their COVID-19 Lockdown experiences. These conversations can help the teacher rethink and seek new ways to understand and guide children through challenging situations. In addition, the insights gained from the study can be helpful for policymakers concerned with maximising the capacity for schools and families to ensure continuous learning for all children in the event of a crisis.
Online distance learning readiness of senior high school students in a Philippine public school

AUTHOR(S)
Joenel D. Coros; Mishel P. Coros

Published: June 2022   Journal: Asian Journal of Education and Social Studies,

The unprecedented arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic made the schools in the country adopt online mediums and platforms, so that learning may continue without causing potential harm to every student's health. Due to the non-availability of data on online distance learning readiness of senior high school students in Public Senior High School X, together with the dearth of literature that could guide school administrators and stakeholders in the school in crafting empirically established programs, projects, and innovation, the study was conducted. The study employed a descriptive-comparative and -correlational approach. It was participated by 346 senior high school students determined through multi-stage sampling. Their level of online distance learning readiness was assessed using a standardized instrument. Data were analyzed using mean, standard deviation, Mann-Whitney U test, and Spearman rho rank correlation.

The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and recession on career preparation during high school

AUTHOR(S)
Shaun M. Dougherty; Walter G. Ecton; Sade Bonilla (et al.)

Published: June 2022   Journal: Peabody Journal of Education
School closings in response to COVID-19 reduced the opportunity for students to engage in all learning including career and technical education (CTE). As a result of the COVID-19 disruption student opportunities for work-based learning and completion of hours required for professional certification was severely reduced. The absence of these experiences had the potential to create disruptions in the skill and experience accumulation for youth and their transition to the labor market. Prior research demonstrated that CTE training and certifications in high school improve earnings and employment outcomes for students, particularly those from marginalized communities. This paper uses administrative data from Massachusetts to investigate whether COVID-19 disruptions differentially influenced outcomes for CTE students relative to non-CTE students.
Impact of school closure due to COVID-19 on phonemic awareness of first-grade primary school children

AUTHOR(S)
Kerem Coskun; Cihan Kara

Published: June 2022   Journal: Humanities and Social Sciences Communications
The purpose of the present research was to disclose the impact of school closures due COVID-19 on phonemic awareness of first-grade primary school students. The research sample comprised two cohorts. Cohort-1 consisted of 59 first-grade primary school students, while there were 193 students in Cohort-2. A total of 252 first-grade primary school students were recruited into the research sample. Data were collected with the Phonemic Awareness Test which was specifically designed for the research. Mediation analysis was used for data analysis. Results of the mediation analysis indicated that school closures due to COVID-19 led to significant decreases in phonemic awareness of first-grade primary school students. Results are also discussed along with student–teacher interactions.
Lived experiences of teachers, parents, and learners in science amidst pandemic

AUTHOR(S)
Bon Eric Arceo Besonia; Lyka Francisco Magnate

Published: June 2022   Journal: IOER INTERNATIONAL MULTIDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH JOURNAL
COVID-19 pandemic has affected the educational system worldwide. Policies were created and implemented to guide the schools to offer flexible learning. Nevertheless, its implementation was partly in favor of those on the mainland. So, the author explored the lived experiences of teachers, parents, and learners in Science about their problems encountered, coping mechanisms, and perception of the learning modality in an island school. With this, an in-depth interview was employed to gather the data and was triangulated through observation and focus group discussion. Thematic analysis revealed that the complexity of the topics, the conduct of experiments and its materialization, and the unreliability scores of the learners were Science teachers' problems; their coping mechanisms were teacher-parent communication, additional learning resources, and house-to-house visitation; their perceptions disclosed that the learning modality is difficult.
Education under attack 2022

AUTHOR(S)
Jerome Marston; Marika Tsolakis

Institution: Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies
Published: June 2022

Attacks on education and military use of schools increased by one-third in 2020 compared to 2019, and remained at the same rate in 2021. Meanwhile, the number of people harmed in attacks and military use declined by half in 2020, compared to 2019, then doubled in 2021, returning to near pre-pandemic rates. In some countries, during initial public-health lockdowns in early 2020, GCPEA noted a reduction in attacks on education followed by a spike in attacks on schools or school teachers and students when educational facilities reopened in late 2020 or early 2021. Armed forces and non-state armed groups also took advantage of vacant schools, using them for military purposes during the pandemic in Afghanistan, Myanmar, Syria, and Sudan, amongst others. One explanation for the decline in the number of people harmed in 2020 may be that fewer students or staff were present in schools or universities when attacks occurred. Alternatively, with students and teachers out of schools due to the pandemic, armed groups and armed forces opposed to education no longer needed to violently prevent their attendance. As students and educators resumed in-person learning in 2021, the number of people harmed was similar to in years prior to the pandemic.

Distance education & the digital divide: ensuring learning continuity for girls during school closures
Institution: Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies
Published: June 2022

This brief was developed to support the dissemination of key messages in Mind the Gap 2: Seeking Safe and Sustainable Solutions for Girls’ Education in Crises. It provides an overview of evidence and gaps in girls’ and women’s access to distance education and recommends actions for gender-responsive planning and design of distance education policies and interventions.


Strength-based parenting and academic motivation in adolescents returning to school after COVID-19 school closure: exploring the effect of school belonging and strength use

AUTHOR(S)
Gökmen Arslan; Kelly-Ann Allen; Lea Waters

Published: May 2022   Journal: Psychological Reports
The present study aimed to examine whether the level of strength-based parenting a student receives during remote learning affects their levels of academic motivation once returning to school. Additionally, the study sought to explore whether school belonging mediated the association between strength-based parenting and academic motivation and whether student strength use moderated this mediating relationship. The sample comprised of secondary school students who had recently returned back to campus, following a period of COVID-19 enforced remote learning (n = 404; age range: 11 to 18 years; M = 14.75, SD = 1.59; 50.2% female, and 3% non-/other gendered or declined to answer). Strength-based parenting had a significant predictive effect on student academic motivation with school belonging mediating the association between strength-based parenting and academic motivation. The mediating effect of school belonging on the association between strength-based parenting and academic motivation was moderated by strength use during remote learning.
226 - 240 of 771

UNICEF Innocenti's Children and COVID-19 Library is a database collecting research from around the world on COVID-19 and its impacts on children and adolescents.

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COVID-19 & Children: Rapid Research Response

UNICEF Innocenti is mobilizing a rapid research response in line with UNICEF’s global response to the COVID-19 crisis. The initiatives we’ve begun will provide the broad range of evidence needed to inform our work to scale up rapid assessment, develop urgent mitigating strategies in programming and advocacy, and preparation of interventions to respond to the medium and longer-term consequences of the COVID-19 crisis. The research projects cover a rapid review of evidence, education analysis, and social and economic policies.