24 | Quality Early Learning
BOX O.6
The COVID-19 Pandemic and Early Childhood Education The COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic has dramatically affected children’s lives and access to learning. Young children have been and will continue to be particularly vulnerable during the COVID-19 pandemic and recovery. This vulnerability stems from several issues, including the developmental period of their life and relatively narrow window in which to intervene before primary school entry, the need for caregivers to engage with and support young children’s learning at home, limited access to education technology or physical learning materials in many homes, and decisions by some countries to prioritize virtual learning for older children rather than younger children. To avoid the loss of these learning opportunities, countries had to act quickly during the crisis to reach children, and adjustments to programs will be necessary during the recovery phase to reflect the lost learning opportunities that will affect many children for years to come. System-level issues will also need to be addressed because many countries are expected to now experience even more overenrollment in early childhood education (ECE) or early primary grades as a result of the lost time when some children could not enroll. Although countries are striving to provide distance learning programs for six-to-eight-year-olds, programs for four-to-five-year-olds are less common. There are bright spots though. In Colombia, the Instituto Colombiano de Bienestar Familiar launched the Mis Manos te Enseñan (My Hands Teach You) program to provide pregnant women and young children with information, activity kits, phone calls, and other support to promote children’s development. In North Macedonia, the government created a TV classroom and the Eduino digital platform aimed at enhancing the learning of ECE and primary school children. The World Bank also supported the government in securing the rights to Sesame Street, a television program that provides critical early education to children, which airs on three national television stations and reaches an estimated 250,000 children daily. In addition, the government has partnered with the World Bank on the Read@Home initiative, a new effort to get reading, learning, and play materials into homes, targeting families that are unlikely to be reached with many of the remote learning approaches being rolled out by ministries of education in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. In North Macedonia, Read@Home will reach all children ages three to twelve from the country’s poorest 10 percent of households. Each child receives a package of four picture books in his or her native tongue with accompanying questions and activities for each book, continued next page
