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Children and COVID-19 Research Library

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

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16 - 30 of 122
On call: using mobile technologies to measure learning in emergencies

AUTHOR(S)
Marco Valenza; Thomas Dreesen; Sophia Kan

Institution: *UNICEF
Published: October 2022
How can we harness the power of mobile technologies to track learning in emergencies? Identifying ways to improve assessments in emergencies is incredibly important as there remains large gaps in understanding how children are learning in crisis settings. This report aims to provide practitioners with practical guidance and resources on using mobile technology to conduct learning assessments in emergency settings. It is the second of a two-part series on uses of mobile phones for education in emergency programmes and draws from a review of the existing literature as well as feedback from education in emergencies practitioners.
On call: using mobile phones to provide learning in emergencies

AUTHOR(S)
Sophia Kan; Thomas Dreesen; Marco Valenza

Institution: *UNICEF
Published: October 2022
In 2021, an estimated 37 million children were forcibly displaced across the globe. Ensuring these children continue their education in times of crisis is a significant challenge. One tool that can help children stay in education is basic mobile phones. Basic mobile phones can provide learning through multiple channels, such as text messages, voice calls, nudges and lessons through radio broadcasts. This report outlines, in detail, how mobile phones can be applied as a learning tool in emergency settings. It also provides practical case studies and references for how mobile phones have been used to teach students, support parents and train teachers.
Adolescents in the abyss of Lebanon’s worst economic crisis: A focus on Lebanese and Palestinian adolescents’ education, and voice and agency

AUTHOR(S)
Sally Youssef; Nicola Jones; Agnieszka Małachowska (et al.)

Institution: Gender and Adolescence Global Evidence
Published: September 2022

Vulnerable Lebanese and Palestinian refugee adolescents in crisis-stricken Lebanon, amid a global pandemic, face the most enormous challenges to their education. With increasing socioeconomic vulnerabilities and shrinking opportunities, and the ever more fragile education sector, adolescents’ education is increasingly at risk. In 2021, an estimated 260,000 Lebanese children and 440,000 refugee children dropped out of school. This report focuses on Palestinian and Lebanese adolescents’ access to education and learning, and their opportunities to exercise voice and agency, highlighting the impact of the Lebanese crisis on their lives. It draws on findings from the Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence (GAGE) longitudinal study, involving adolescents from Syrian and Palestinian refugee communities and vulnerable Lebanese host communities. Using interactive participatory tools, including participatory photography, GAGE aims to gain a better understanding of ‘what works’ to empower different groups of adolescents (especially girls) in conflict-affected contexts.

Effectiveness of modular learning approach among secondary school students during pandemic in Zambales, Philippines

AUTHOR(S)
Redentor E. Serrano; Elizabeth N. Farin

Published: September 2022   Journal: Asian Journal of Education and Social Studies

The world experienced the COVID-19 Pandemic, which severely affected the quality of Education, especially in the Philippines. The option was to change the face-to-face approach to a modular approach. This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of the modular learning approach to students’ academic performance. The study was conducted in Sta. Cruz District in the province of Zambales, Philippines. A Descriptive Research Design was employed. A total of one hundred fifty-four (154) teacher-respondents were randomly selected. There was a significant difference in the perception towards dimensions on the level of effectiveness in the implementation of modular learning approach as to Technical Support, Subject Content, Construction, Delivery and Retrieval Mechanism, Assessment of Student Achievement, Adherence to IATF Health Observance Protocols, and School and Local Government Unit Support. This modality's modular learning approach has improved and increased students’ academic performance. The students were rated “Satisfactory” in their academic performance. On the other hand, there is a negligible relationship between academic performance and the level of effectiveness in implementing the modular learning approach.

The effect of Covid-19 prevention education on public mothers in reducing anxiety level in the time Covid-19 pandemic

AUTHOR(S)
Liza Erviana Erviana; Ismarwati ; Yuli Isnaeni

Published: September 2022   Journal: Jurnal Health Sains
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused many restrictions on almost all routine services, both in terms of access and quality, including restrictions on maternal and neonatal health services, such as a reduction in the frequency of antenatal care and postponement of classes for pregnant women and the postpartum period, these conditions can cause problems globally. psychological problems for pregnant women postpartum, which can cause anxiety, if the mother's own anxiety is left untreated it will have an impact on mothers who will experience postpartum blues. This paper aims to review COVID-19 prevention education for postpartum mothers in reducing anxiety levels.
Implementation and challenges of online education during the COVID-19 outbreak: a national survey of children and parents in China

AUTHOR(S)
Wenting Zhu; Qianqian Liu; Xiumin Hong

Published: July 2022   Journal: Early Childhood Research Quarterly
This study aims to explore the implementation and challenges of China's national online education strategy – “Suspending Classes Without Stopping Learning” (SCWSL) – during the COVID-19 pandemic from the perspective of children and their parents. Altogether 28,334 children (aged 6-8 years) and their parents were randomly sampled from nine cities in five provinces of China, and a mixed-method design involving a questionnaire and interviews was used.
Recovering learning: are children and youth on track in skills development?
Institution: *UNICEF
Published: July 2022

We are in a learning crisis. To give young people the best chance to succeed, we need to support them holistically. The first step is to identify where children and youth are in building the range of skills they need, monitor progress in their development and ensure no child or young person is left behind. The Recovering Learning report published jointly by UNICEF and the Education Commission, and supported by Generation Unlimited, contributes to these efforts by providing a comprehensive view of skills attainment among children and youth. The report highlights the need to improve tracking progress in skills development, especially in light of the global priority to recover education in response to COVID-related disruptions. To succeed in the global commitment to support the holistic development of children and young people, we need better and more inclusive data to recover and reimagine our education system RAPID-ly. We also need to mobilize increased and improved investment in education to finance transformation, including through innovative instruments.

The catch-up learning report: addressing the COVID-19 learning crisis in Cambodia
Institution: World Vision
Published: July 2022

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Cambodia had one of the longest periods of school closure in the region with face-to-face education suspended for more than half of the official school calendar over the years 2020 and 2021. It led to substantial learning gaps among students of all grades. To address those, significant investments are now needed in remedial education in the country. To contribute to this effort and to collect more evidence on how to address these learning gaps, World Vision International Cambodia piloted the Catch-Up Learning project in April and May 2022. The present report presents the key learnings from this pilot project and includes recommendations on how to better respond to the COVID-19 learning crisis in Cambodia.

Data disaggregation for inclusive quality education in emergencies: the COVID-19 experience in Ghana

AUTHOR(S)
Sayibu Abdul Badi

Published: June 2022   Journal: The Journal on Education in Emergencies
The process of data analysis provides, undoubtedly, some of the major challenges facing organizations during the implementation of interventions in emergencies. The challenges are primarily due to the lack of direct access to beneficiaries and the rapidly evolving nature of emergencies. This paper outlines how Plan International’s Making Ghanaian Girls Great! (MGCubed) project used phone-based surveys to assess the uptake of a Ghana Learning TV (GLTV) programme implemented in partnership with the government. Due to the emergency context and the need for real-time information to guide the implementation of this intervention, there was little time to undertake a major statistical analysis of survey data. This paper discusses how the MGCubed project adopted a simple data disaggregation method using a logic tree technique to gain valuable insights from the survey data. The method allowed for exploring the insights of the data set in real-time without requiring more complex and time-consuming analysis.
Youth as researchers: exploring the impact of COVID-19 on youth; global policy brief
Institution: UNESCO
Published: June 2022

The Youth As Researchers (YAR) initiative is a youth development programme, designed to ensure, support,  and  advance  youth  voices.  It  provides  training  and  mentoring  that  supports  youth  to  design  and  conduct  social  research,  with  a  view  to  informing  policy-making,  programme  design  and future research.The  initiative  was  first  conceived  by  the  UNESCO  Chair  on  Children,  Youth  and  Civic  Engagement  (Ireland), as a model to engage vulnerable youth in re-designing their own futures. It is premised on the  belief  that  no-one  knows  better  than  young  people  themselves  about  their  problems,  and  the  solutions that will work for them. It gained traction in the current context, as UNESCO’s Member States are looking for innovative ways to address the challenges youth are facing. In engaging with the Social and Human Science Sector, and with UNESCO’s field offices, the youth-led research agenda delivered a strong message on the need to underpin policy decisions with scientific facts, and to ensure civil society is consulted on the issues at hand.

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.
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.

Inclusive learning for children in Northeast Nigeria: radio school response during a global pandemic

AUTHOR(S)
Margaret Ebubedike; Michael Boampong; Kiki James

Published: May 2022   Journal: Social Inclusion
With a burgeoning out‐of‐school population and illiteracy rate, the situation of protracted conflict and crises fuelled by the Boko‐Haram insurgency further exacerbates educational inequality for children in northern Nigeria. The Covid‐19 pandemic further deepened the “educational poverty” experienced there. This article focuses on data generated around ACE radio school, an initiative to mitigate the impact of Covid‐19‐related school closures in northern Nigeria. The initiative targeted young learners using radio as a medium to support their continued learning remotely in numeracy, literacy, sciences, and civics education. Daily learning activities were broadcasted in the local Hausa language, supported through “listening groups” that engaged local learning facilitators in the communities. Despite the known existing barriers that have been identified to hinder access to quality education in the region, including poverty, religion, socio‐cultural factors, and protracted conflict situations, our interviews revealed that parents were committed to supporting their children’s attendance at listening groups, due to the use of their mother tongue as a mode of instruction.
Quantitative analysis of youth not in education, employment and training in East and Southern Africa

AUTHOR(S)
Helen Perry

Institution: UN Women
Published: May 2022

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated worldwide economic decline, East and Southern Africa (ESA) has suffered job losses and an increase in poverty, interruptions in healthcare services, and declined nutrition levels. Young adults whose place in the labor market is often informal, temporary, and tenuous at best have suffered greater job and income losses than their parents. As part of ensuring that recovery efforts also reduce the number of youth, especially young women, not in employment, education, or training (NEET), UN Women in ESA commissioned a quantitative study on the NEET status of youth aged 15-24 years in nine countries in the region. This report summarizes the country findings and provides a detailed analysis of available NEET data for youth aged 15-24 years with a view to supporting evidence-based policy advocacy and action in this area. The study covers Botswana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa, and Uganda.

16 - 30 of 122

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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.