Children and COVID-19 Research Library

This study surveyed 3275 Chinese parents’ beliefs and attitudes around young children’s online learning during the lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic. Most parents (92.7%) in the study reported that their children had online learning experiences during the pandemic, and many (84.6%) spent less than a half-hour each time. The parents generally had negative beliefs about the values and benefits of online learning and preferred traditional learning in early childhood settings.

Adolescents and young adults have experienced significant impact as a result of COVID-19 with many schools and work places transitioning to online formats, altering procedures or closing completely. Notably, many youths are in a unique position as both employees and students. Our team was interested in understanding what has been difficult for youth in making these changes, what has worked well, and what would help them learn or work better.

This article was to determine the voice of the international community in responding to the challenges of school closure policies during the 2019 Covid-19 pandemic. In order to understand the impacts and challenges of school closure, a series of critical searches were under taken on various online sources, for instance news updates publications , practitioners, and school reactions to unplanned global policies to obligate students learning from home.

This paper argues that under emergency conditions such as Covid-19, the strategies that the official educational establishment imposed to retain the formal curriculum are unjust. The abnormal educational circumstances require that education prioritise the well-being and safety of schoolchildren. Furthermore, the parental educational role needs to be reimagined for its value in advancing educational goals.

The key problems and challenges connected with the Covid-19 pandemic in the field of education in sub-Saharan Africa are described in this paper. The study is based on the information collected from teachers and parents during the lockdown. The main problems connected with the organization of distance learning, such as the availability and accessibility of electricity and stable communications, were described. The main questions connected with the support of e-learning such as unequal access to distance education platforms and tools and readiness of teachers of public and private schools were described. Key social and demographic challenges and threats to sustainable e-learning, such as critical overload of teachers, child mobilization for domestic tasks, age, ethnic and gender-based harassment and violence were analyzed.

The COVID-19 pandemic has closed schools for over 1.6 billion children, with potentially long-term consequences. This paper provides some of the first experimental evidence on strategies to minimize the fallout of the pandemic on education outcomes. We evaluate two low-technology interventions to substitute schooling during this period: SMS text messages and direct phone calls. We conduct a rapid trial in Botswana to inform real-time policy responses collecting data at four to six-week intervals. We present results from the first wave.

Since December 2019, countries around the world have borne the impact of a virus that has altered the way that we do business, interact socially and receive our education. While COVID-19 has had a detrimental impact upon the world, it has also lead to a more in-depth look at the education of our children from elementary school up to secondary school. Cybersecurity is an issue for everyone, but children are a particularly vulnerable population because many are raised playing with a cellphone or a tablet and have not truly learned about the dangers involved with accessing the Internet. Instead, it’s a play area for children as they watch YouTube videos or even access social media with or without their parent’s consent.

While remote learning measures are essential for mitigating the short-term and long-term consequences of COVID-19 school closures, little is known about their impact on and effectiveness for learning.

This working paper contributes to filling this gap by: 1. Exploring how disrupted schooling may affect foundational learning skills, using data from MICS6 (Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys - round 6) in 2017–2019; 2. Examining how countries are delivering and monitoring remote learning based on data from the UNESCO-UNICEF-World Bank’s National Education Responses to COVID-19 School Closures survey; and 3. Presenting promising key practices for the effective delivery and monitoring of remote learning.

The COVID-19 pandemic presents unique challenges for adolescents due to disruptions in school and social life. This article's findings suggest that efforts should focus on helping adolescents cultivate academic skills needed during school closures, providing mental and physical health resources, and helping adolescents navigate their peer relationships in the short and long-term given ongoing remote education and social distancing due to the pandemic.

In response to the unprecedented educational challenges created by school closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 90 per cent of countries have implemented some form of remote learning policy. This factsheet estimates the potential reach of digital and broadcast remote learning responses, finding that at least 463 million students around the globe remain cut off from education, mainly due to a lack of remote learning policies or lack of equipment needed for learning at home. This data primarily stems from the UNESCO-UNICEF-World Bank Survey on National Education Responses to COVID-19 School Closures (June-July 2020), as well as household microdata from sources like Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS), Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS).

Some countries are starting to reopen schools as others develop plans to do so following widespread and extended closures due to COVID-19. Using data from two surveys and 164 countries, this research brief describes the educational strategies countries are putting into place, or plan to, in order to mitigate learning impacts of extended school closures, particularly for the most vulnerable children. In addition, it highlights emerging good practices.

The education systems in many countries have faced ample of challenges that emerged due to the COVID-19 pandemic as of the beginning of March 2020, which led to lockdown and closure of schools and universities. As a result, 86 million learner in Arab countries schooling were interrupted. As such, Arab countries found themselves forced to choose between two options, either to use distance learning or don’t provide education at all. Majority of countries have headed towards distance learning, to ensure the continuity and management of the teaching and learning. After three months of distance learning, it was necessary to evaluate this experience in its various aspects and to identify the most critical challenges faced, in addition to providing solutions that would advance the process of distance learning and its outcomes. In this regard, the UNESCO Regional Bureau for Education in the Arab States in Beirut was keen on benefiting from the opinions of all targeted educational stakeholders who have not participated before in similar questionnaires.

In the context of the Global Education Coalition, formed by UNESCO to support governments in their educational response to COVID-19, UNESCO has collaborated with partners to develop a COVID-19 Response Toolkit in Education. The goal of these chapters is to support countries in their educational response to COVID-19 by providing practices and examples, concrete steps for intervention, and tactical action checklists. This particular chapter focuses on the topic of re-enrolment.

Is TV-based learning during COVID-19 school closures in Bangladesh reaching students? Most students (86 percent) within our sample of more than 2,000 Grade 9 stipend recipients are aware of government provided TV-based learning programs; yet only half of the students with access to these programs choose to access them. Also, very few students (21 percent) have access to government provided online learning programs, and among those that do, only about 2 percent choose to access them.

This report looks at how the Covid-19 pandemic is changing education and is based on a survey conducted between 25 April and 7 May 2020 that received responses from government officials, education administrators, teachers, and school administrators in 59 countries.