During COVID-19, supporting caregivers is key to students’ success

Janella is a working parent with a toddler and two school-aged children who have been learning online at home for the last year.

Around the one-year mark of the COVID-19 lockdown and resulting school closures, those of us in the global education community continue taking stock of how things are going for families and students. By many accounts, the children are not all right – and neither are their parents. Hundreds of millions of children did not go back to their classrooms at the start of this school year, either in a traditional sense or, in some cases, at all, and many schools still have not reopened. And although the pandemic’s end may be in sight considering the effectiveness of the vaccines, with uneven rollouts across the U.S. and many parts of the world, and the rising prevalence of variants continuing to cause uncertainty, it is unclear how soon students – and their caregivers – will see a return to normalcy.

The incredibly negative effects of the pandemic on children are clear. School closures, fear of illness, social distancing and future uncertainties could have long-lasting impacts on children’s mental health that, according to the Executive Director of UNICEF, could “far surpass the immediate health and economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving long-term social and economic consequences in its wake.” And, in fact, in one survey of 17,000 caregivers across 46 countries, 46 percent reported psychological distress in their children due to the pandemic. Children living in poverty, violence and exclusion are most affected, and girls are the most vulnerable to dropping out of school, sexual abuse, the burdens of childcare and care for the sick, and various consequences of teen pregnancy. 

Carol, 8, who lives in Uganda, works on an assignment in some home study materials that ChildFund provided her. She dreams of becoming a nurse. Photo by Boas Opedun.

In April 2020, soon after the start of the pandemic, schools had closed in 188 countries, leaving approximately 1.6 billion children out of school. Since then, governments worldwide have pivoted, implementing distance learning programs with varying degrees of success. Lessons are given over the radio in the Philippines, and in Honduras, education is provided on a digital platform. In Sri Lanka and Sierra Leone, where schools re-opened in late August, education content was aired over the radio or television, and learning packets were sent to younger children. Ecuador and Uganda have used a mix of all the above in their efforts. All countries have struggled to reach students, some more than others. In The Gambia, lessons were televised and aired on the radio at the start of the pandemic, but broadcasting stopped after three months when the contract between the government and the media platform expired. The Philippines has closed schools completely until further notice, leaving children with only online program options for now.  

While it is laudable that so many governments have transitioned to remote learning to provide education for children during this unprecedented situation, the majority have used digital platforms. With the global share of households with computer access at just 53 percent, an estimated 465 million children are unable to participate in remote learning. Even radio programs in Sierra Leone and in Ecuador, which do not require internet, have not reached children in the most rural areas. “Due to [the coronavirus], it was very difficult for the children to continue their education without school and teachers,” says Loknath, a father in Odisha, India. “[The] government had started to provide education through mobile and TV, but for people like us, it was quite difficult to afford … a smartphone with an internet connection, especially [when] we all were going through a financial crisis.” 

But even for children with access to technology, it is critical that they have supportive caregivers to help them navigate these new schooling methods. Even in a resource-rich environment such as the U.S., many children have not been able to fully participate in distance learning, not only due to the lack of computer access, but also because many caregivers are working and cannot afford to teach or supervise their children each day. This lack of supervision and reliance on technology for learning has also created a dramatic rise in the online sexual abuse and exploitation of children (OSEAC), an urgent crisis putting millions of children at risk.

For caregivers to successfully fill the role of teacher, provider and parent, they must have the time and availability to do so, the material to support students’ online learning, and relief for their own psycho-social needs. On top of this, caregivers must have self-efficacy and school acumen — a basic understanding of how school works, including ways to communicate with teachers and their own rights as parents in that context.

These limitations and barriers to access for so many caregivers are only increasing the pre-COVID-19 equity gap in education, with 53 percent of children in low- and middle-income countries now living in “Learning Poverty”: unable to read and understand a simple text by age 10. In fact, UNICEF estimates that more than 24 million students across 180 countries could drop out of school altogether due to COVID-19, perpetuating the cycle of poverty and the education gap further. Without attaining adequate literacy, numeracy and social-emotional learning skills, these children will be at risk of never gaining a decent livelihood as adults and, at worst, being forced into child labor or sexual exploitation.

Caregivers have the potential to mitigate these devastating impacts, but they must be supported in a multifaceted approach that should address not only their economic and material needs, but also their psycho-social needs and school acumen. To address this, ChildFund programs provide learning kits with intergenerational activities, group parenting sessions on assisting children’s learning, child protection, and social-emotional skills such as communication and managing emotions.  Caregiver well-being and self-care are paramount to the programs since caregivers’ stress influences their children’s well-being and ultimately their ability to learn. Sheetal, a mother who participates in ChildFund’s program in Mumbai, describes how her family was “constantly discussing the pandemic and the fear and gloominess associated with it” while they were under lockdown. The caregiver support program helped her to develop a routine for engaging the children, which had further benefits. “This [program] helped our children learn and helped us come out of the state of stress which we were experiencing due to constantly thinking about COVID,” she says.

In countries where social distancing still applies, these sessions are being pre-recorded for caregivers to listen to at their convenience. In The Gambia, ChildFund is also piloting “learning pods” with a small cohort of children and teachers providing study sessions for children in their homes. In addition, ChildFund has partnered with local community organizations and ministries of education to develop and deliver learning packets, develop educational content for radio, train teachers on techno-pedagogical resources, provide cash transfers and support safe re-entry into schools by distributing sanitation and personal protective equipment. Donors, governments and organizations should increase funding and implementation of similar caregiver support programs to bolster their skills and, if possible, increase their time with their children.

This issue of increasing global disparity forces all of us who support education domestically and abroad to rethink what essential skills children need at this time, with social-emotional skills being paramount. While we continue to strive toward solutions for improving the well-being of children and their access to quality education during this pandemic, it is clear that the more we support caregivers — the new teachers — the better they will be equipped to care for and teach children, and the closer we will be to finding answers. This investment in caregivers would boost learning and well-being outcomes for children for the long term.

ChildFund is a member of the Inter-agency Network of Education in Emergencies, which hosts this site with education resources related to COVID-19.