Children and COVID-19 Research Library

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.

Today the COVID-19 pandemic consequences for the preschool education system is one of the most popular research topics, as the lockdown led to serious disruptions to the usual way of family life that is a key condition for the normal development of a child. In Russia, a typical reaction of the authorities to the pandemic was the massive closure of childcare enterprises, that gave many families an additional burden in the form of the task of mastering the preschool education program. In this situation, digital technologies are of particular importance for the successful organization of preschool education in the family and the preservation of an emotionally positive tone in the family, according to the authors of this paper, the educational potential of which depends on how much the preschool child and his family are involved in them. Based on the results of the study, the authors conclude that digital literacy of family members is one of the conditions for a positive experience of the COVID-19 lockdown for families with preschool children.

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.