̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Pauline Rose

War in Lebanon has turned a decade of education crisis into a catastrophe - report

tdk25 — Thu, 05 Dec 2024 10:21:01 +0000

̽��ֱ��recent conflict in Lebanon has deepened a national education crisis in which children have already lost up to 60% of school time over the past 6 years, new research warns.

̽��ֱ��report, by the Centre for Lebanese Studies and the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s REAL Centre, is the first to assess the state of education since Israel began its ground offensive in Lebanon in October. Using surveys and interviews with parents and teachers, it provides a snapshot of the situation a few weeks before the new ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

̽��ֱ��study stresses that even if that ceasefire holds, a co-ordinated, forward-thinking response is essential to prevent further learning losses in an already fragile education system.

Before the recent conflict, Lebanese schools had endured over a decade of compounded crises, including an influx of Palestinian and Syrian refugees, a major financial crisis, the 2020 Beirut explosion, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Since 2018, the authors calculate, students have missed more than 760 teaching days due to strikes, disruption and closures.

̽��ֱ��report shows that the effects of the latest violence have been uneven, depending on where families and teachers are based and their immediate circumstances. Refugee children and students with disabilities have been disproportionately affected and are among those who face the greatest risk of missing out further, even as the education system struggles to recover.

Dr Maha Shuayb, Director of the Centre for Lebanese Studies and a researcher at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Faculty of Education: “ ̽��ֱ��war has deepened learning losses that were already near-catastrophic. Whatever happens next, flexible, inclusive, multi-agency strategies are urgently needed to ensure education reaches those who need it most.”

“Without thorough response planning, existing inequalities will become more entrenched, leaving entire sections of the younger generation behind.”

̽��ֱ��report is the second in a series examining the impact of war on education in the Middle East. ̽��ֱ��previous report, on Gaza, warned that conflict there could set children’s education back by several years.

REAL Centre Director Professor Pauline Rose said: “In Lebanon and Gaza, it is not only clear that violence, displacement and trauma are causing devastating learning losses; we also need a much more co-ordinated response. Education should not be an afterthought in times of crisis; it is vital to future stability.”

More than 1.3 million civilians have been displaced in Lebanon since Israel escalated its military operations. ̽��ֱ��new study was undertaken at the end of October, and involved a survey with 1,151 parents and teachers, supplemented with focus groups and interviews.

̽��ֱ��authors calculate that by November, over 1 million students and 45,000 teachers had been directly affected by the conflict. About 40% of public (state-run) schools had been converted into shelters. A further 30% were in war zones, severely limiting space for schooling.

Lebanon’s Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MEHE) attempted to reopen public schools on 4 November, but the study shows that for many people, violence, displacement and inadequate infrastructure impeded the resumption. Researchers found that 303 public schools were running in-person learning and 297 functioning online, but in conflict-hit regions like Baalbek-Hermel, the South, and Nabatiyyeh, barely any were physically open.

Many of the survey participants were living in shelters or overcrowded shared accommodation, where online learning – often the only option available – was difficult. Financial pressures, exacerbated by the war, have further disrupted education. 77% of parents and 66% of teachers said the conflict had reduced their incomes amid rising living costs.

While all teachers and parents wanted education to resume, the study therefore found that they were not universally prepared. Only 19% of teachers in areas heavily affected by the fighting, for example, considered restarting education a ‘high priority’. They also tended to prefer online learning, often for safety reasons, while those in less disrupted regions felt better prepared to resume education in-person.

Both parents and teachers highlighted the resource shortages hindering learning. Many lacked reliable internet, digital devices or even electricity. For example, only 62% of teachers and 49% of parents said they had an internet connection.

̽��ֱ��report also highlights the extremely difficult experiences of Palestinian and Syrian refugee children and those with disabilities: groups that were disproportionately affected by systemic inequalities before the conflict began.

̽��ֱ��authors estimate that as many as 5,000 children with disabilities could be out of school, with some parents reluctant to send children back due to a lack of inclusive provision. Refugee families, meanwhile, are among those who most urgently need food, shelter and financial help. Despite this, Syrian parents were statistically more likely to consider education a high priority. This may reflect concerns that they have been overlooked in MEHE’s plans.

Some families and teachers suggested the government’s November restart was proving chimerical. “ ̽��ֱ��authorities claim that the school year has been launched successfully, but this isn’t reflective of reality,” one teacher said. “It feels more like a drive for revenue than a genuine commitment.”

MEHE’s attempts at a uniform strategy, the researchers stress, will not help everyone. “ ̽��ֱ��focus has largely been on resuming schooling, with little attention paid to quality of learning," they write, adding that there is a need for a far more inclusive response plan, involving tailored strategies which reflect the different experiences of communities on the ground.

̽��ֱ��report adds that this will require much closer collaboration between government agencies, NGOs, universities, and disability-focused organisations to address many of the problems raised by the analysis, such as financial instability, a lack of online learning infrastructure, and insufficient digital teaching capacity.

Even if the ceasefire holds, challenges remain. Many displaced families may not return home for weeks, while schools may still be used as shelters or require repairs. Temporary learning spaces, targeted infrastructure restoration, and trauma-informed approaches to helping children who need psychosocial learning recovery, will all be required.

Yusuf Sayed, Professor of Education, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge said: “Everyone hopes that Lebanon will return to normality, but we have grave reservations about the quality, consistency and accessibility of education in the medium term. Addressing that requires better data collection and monitoring, a flexible plan and multi-agency support. Our working assumption should be that for more than a million children, this crisis is far from over.”

Israel-Hezbollah conflict has deepened an education crisis in which children have lost up to 60% of schooling in 6 years, study shows.

Russell Watkins/Department for International Development

Syrian refugee children in a Lebanese school classroom

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Palestinian education ‘under attack’, leaving a generation close to losing hope, study warns

fpjl2 — Wed, 25 Sep 2024 07:36:49 +0000

̽��ֱ��ongoing war in Gaza will set children and young people’s education back by up to 5 years and risks creating a lost generation of permanently traumatised Palestinian youth, a new study warns.

̽��ֱ��report, by a team of academics working in partnership with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), is the first to comprehensively quantify the war’s toll on learning since it began in October 2023. It also details the devastating impact on children, young people and teachers, supported by new accounts from frontline staff and aid workers.

̽��ֱ��study was a joint undertaking involving researchers at the Faculty of Education, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and the Centre for Lebanese Studies, in partnership with UNRWA. It shows that Gaza’s children have already lost 14 months of education since 2019 due to COVID-19, earlier Israeli military operations, and the current war.

On this basis and using information such as global post-COVID-19 education recovery data, the researchers model several potential futures for Gaza’s younger generation, depending on when the war ends and how quickly the education system is restored.

̽��ֱ��most optimistic prediction – assuming an immediate ceasefire and rapid international effort to rebuild the education system – is that students will lose 2 years of learning. If the fighting continues until 2026, the losses could stretch to 5 years. This does not account for the additional effects of trauma, hunger and forced displacement, all of which are deepening Gaza’s education crisis.

Without urgent, large-scale international support for education, the researchers suggest that there is a significant threat not just to students’ learning, but their overall faith in the future and in concepts such as human rights. Despite this, the study shows that education has been deprioritised in international aid efforts, in favour of other areas. “Education, simply put, is not seen as lifesaving,” the report warns.

Professor Pauline Rose, Director of the Research for Equitable Access and Learning (REAL) Centre, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “Palestinian education is under attack in Gaza. Israeli military operations have had a significant effect on learning.”

“As well as planning for how we rebuild Gaza’s shattered education system, there is an urgent need to get educational support for children now. Education is a right for all young people. We have a collective responsibility to protect it.”

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, more than 10,600 children and 400 teachers had been killed in Israeli military operations by August 2024, and more than 15,300 students and 2,400 teachers injured. Hundreds of thousands of young people have been displaced and are living in shelters.

Satellite images analysed by the Occupied Palestinian Territory Education Cluster have verified that over 90 per cent of schools have been damaged, many beyond repair. Since August, UNRWA has provided education in the shelters, reaching about 8,000 children, but the study warns that much more is needed to mitigate lost learning, which was already considerable following COVID-19.

̽��ֱ��researchers calculate that 14 months of lost schooling so far have increased ‘learning poverty’ – the proportion of children unable to read a basic text by age 10 – by at least 20 percentage points. ̽��ֱ��accurate figure may be even higher, as the calculation does not account for the wider impacts of the war on children and teachers.

̽��ֱ��study draws together information from different sources and includes a comprehensive involvement of the Education Cluster and Cluster partners sharing their inputs, challenges and progress to enrich the report. ̽��ֱ��report provides a comprehensive overview of those broader effects. It highlights the devastating psychological consequences for Palestinian children who were already living ‘in constant fear and lack of hope’ after 17 years of blockade, according to a 2022 report by Save ̽��ֱ��Children.

Professor Maha Shuayb, Director of the Centre for Lebanese Studies, said: “Young people’s prospects in Gaza are being extinguished and our findings show that with it they are losing hope. Education is central to stabilising that spiral of decline. If it is simply erased, the consequences will be far-reaching.”

Save ̽��ֱ��Children has estimated that more than 10 children per day have lost limbs since the war began. ̽��ֱ��report warns of rising numbers of less visible disabilities, which will put further strain on an education system ill-equipped to support children with special needs.

̽��ֱ��study suggests that continuous shock and suffering are now shaping children’s outlook and world views. Interviewees reported some children questioning values such as equality, human rights and tolerance when these are taught in the shelters. “This is a full generation of trauma,” one humanitarian aid official said; “it will take a generation to overcome it.”

̽��ֱ��report highlights the immense suffering teachers and counsellors have endured physically and mentally. ̽��ֱ��killings, displacement and daily realities of life during war have taken a tremendous toll on their ability to engage meaningfully in education and will, it says, adversely affect reconstruction efforts.

Professor Yusuf Sayed, from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “It is important to recognise teachers and counsellors have, like the rest of the population, suffered immensely. There is evidence of extraordinary commitment from educators striving to maintain learning, but inevitably the deprivation, killings and hardship are affecting their ability to do so.”

Despite a flash appeal from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the analysis shows that just 3.5 per cent of aid for Gaza has been invested in education. Major donors like the US and Germany have neglected education in their aid packages, and blockades continue to hinder the delivery of resources on the ground.

Without more funding and access to learning, structured play and other forms of support, the report warns, the long-term repercussions for Gaza’s next generation will only worsen.

It calls for immediate steps focusing on the resumption of education, which include providing counselling, safe learning spaces, and support for students and educators with disabilities. It also calls for an immediate and permanent ceasefire and an end to occupation, in line with the International Court of Justice advisory opinion and UN recently-adopted resolution, as only then can Gaza’s education system be rebuilt. This will require a focus on recruiting more teachers and counsellors to cope with the scale of learning loss and trauma suffered by children and young people.

“Education is the only asset the Palestinian people have not been dispossessed of. They have proudly invested in the education of their children in the hope for a better future. Today, more than 625,000 deeply traumatised school-aged children are living in the rubble in Gaza. Bringing them back to learning should be our collective priority. Failing to do that will not only lead to a lost generation but also sow the seeds for more extremism, hatred and violence”, said Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA Commissioner General.

̽��ֱ��study also stresses that Palestinians themselves must lead the education recovery. “A ceasefire is the key for the success of any human development activity in Gaza, including education,” the authors write. “Children have seen that the international community will sit idly by as they are killed. This has left them with questions about values that schools and learning aim to instil around humanitarian principles that teachers will have to navigate.”

̽��ֱ��full report, Palestinian Education Under Attack in Gaza: Restoration, Recovery, Rights and Responsibilities in and through Education, is now available online.

Ongoing war in Gaza will set children and young people’s education back by up to 5 years, report suggests.

UNRWA

Boy sitting in the rubble of a destroyed UNRWA school in Nuseirat, Middle Areas, Gaza 2024

Yes

Sustained, purposeful investment key to ‘leaving no girl behind’, either in education or beyond

tdk25 — Thu, 19 Oct 2023 08:24:14 +0000

̽��ֱ��observations come from an evaluation of 14 projects across 10 countries in Africa and South Asia developed under the ‘Leave No Girl Behind’ (LNGB) initiative, launched in 2016. LNGB is part of the broader Girls’ Education Challenge, run by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office.

̽��ֱ��programme targets the most marginalised girls through structured interventions aimed at improving their academic skills and life chances. Collectively, these have aimed to reach 230,000 adolescent girls aged 10-19. ̽��ֱ��girls involved tend to come from very poor backgrounds. Many have married early, are teenage mothers, or have disabilities. All have either never attended school or dropped out early.

̽��ֱ��new analysis is the latest in a series of reports evaluating the impact of the UK’s recent, targeted support for the world’s least-advantaged girls in general. It was undertaken by a collaboration led by the Research for Equitable Access and Learning (REAL) Centre, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge. ̽��ֱ��research assessed the outcomes of the LNGB projects for more than 17,000 adolescent girls, complementing this with case studies from projects in Ghana, Kenya, and Nepal.

̽��ֱ��verdict is broadly positive. As well as enhancing basic literacy and numeracy skills, LNGB initiatives were found to have improved the girls’ life skills and well-being. Participants often displayed greater confidence and increased self-esteem. This enabled them to have more control over decisions relating to their education and work choices. Girls further reflected on how their future aspirations had changed for the better.

Despite this, the researchers highlight several ongoing challenges. Even after participating in an LNGB programme, many girls still encountered significant economic challenges and deep-rooted gender and social norms, which acted as barriers to their education and career development. With the Girls’ Education Challenge concluding in 2024, the report emphasises the need to engage a range of stakeholders in both LNGB projects and equivalent future initiatives, to identify ways to provide sustained support to tackle barriers that the most marginalised girls will continue to face into the future.

Dr Asma Zubairi, who was part of the REAL Centre’s evaluation team, said: “Leave No Girl Behind did a great job of providing more holistic support than many comparable interventions. Based on feedback from the girls themselves, however, it is clear that when the support stops, the same old problems resurface. There are some profound economic and social issues at play.”

Professor Pauline Rose, Director of the REAL Centre, said: “As we approach the end of the Girls’ Education Challenge, we need to consider what comes next. What Leave No Girl Behind has achieved is really impressive, but there are also lessons to learn. In particular, it is clear that we cannot just switch the support pipeline off for marginalised girls, and expect all those good results to be sustained.”

A hallmark of the LNGB projects was their holistic approach to supporting girls in both their education and livelihood journeys. Beyond improving academic skills, such as basic literacy and numeracy, they also charted a ‘pathway’ for each girl’s future: guiding them towards work opportunities, skills training, or back into formal schooling.

Girls and families were often given money or in-kind support to facilitate this. In Ghana, for instance, the families of girls resuming school received one year of financial aid; elsewhere, girls starting businesses were given start-up kits or funding.

Interviews with the girls, families and community members consistently suggested they emerged as confident, independent problem-solvers; while the life-skills training introduced them to topics such as contraception and tackling gender-based violence, of which some were previously unaware. One, speaking about the Aarambha project in Nepal, said it “taught us about contraceptive methods to not give birth to a child…. I did not know anything like that before [and] I learned it after coming to the community learning centre”.

̽��ֱ��report identifies a ‘virtuous’ circle for many girls who entered employment because they often contributed directly to their communities through their work. In Kenya, for example, some girls who trained in tailoring ended up supplying school uniforms to their local area. This increased respect from their families and peers, which added to their overall sense of empowerment and wellbeing.

Despite these positives, there is evidence that societal attitudes remain a formidable hurdle for many of the girls to participate in education. Social expectations also diverted some from their chosen paths following the programme. Older adolescent girls, for example, were seen as too old to return to education and project facilitators noted they potentially faced ridicule if they tried.

In addition, not all girls were able to pursue pathways that matched their preferences. About one-quarter of girls who pursued work-related pathways had originally expressed a preference for formal education but were dissuaded from pursuing it. Moreover, many of the girls following a work-related pathway were pushed towards a limited list of occupations deemed ‘appropriate’ for women, such as tailoring and hairdressing.

̽��ֱ��report cites the case of Ayaan, a 20-year-old mother from Kenya who had originally dropped out of primary school. After joining an LNGB programme, Ayaan wanted to study chemistry, but was considered too old for formal education. She then opted to train as an electrician, only for her husband to reject this as “a man’s vocation”: “They [project in Kenya] told us that only the young kids have the option to go back to school….and my husband refused me to do electrician because he said that it is for men.” Ayaan ended up opening a business selling nuts, charcoal and clothing: a success on paper, but not when measured against her own dreams.

̽��ֱ��evaluation identifies other structural problems. Not all employers, for example, recognised the qualification girls received after graduating from the LNGB interventions, leaving some feeling “underappreciated and stuck with a useless certificate,” according to one interviewee involved in the implementation of an LNGB project in Zimbabwe.

Despite having initial financial backing, girls and families often struggled to afford school or sustain business ventures once the funding ended. In Kenya, about 20% of graduates from the training pathway remained jobless; 39% on the entrepreneurship pathway started businesses that subsequently failed. Societal prejudices sometimes intersected with this: in Kenya there were accounts of men destroying their wives’ sewing machines to stop them from working.

̽��ֱ��report emphasises that future projects will need to collaborate closely with a wide range of stakeholders from inception. These are likely to include governments and NGOs. Such partnerships, the researchers argue, enhance the prospects of girls receiving ongoing, cross-sector support, which is essential for prolonged success.

A host of other recommendations include ensuring that future projects are of sufficient length to enable girls to master the skills they are being taught (which was not consistently true of the LNGB interventions); more comprehensive career guidance to prevent girls being limited to the same handful of occupations; and ties with microfinance to help those who start their own businesses.

“Well-structured interventions like the LNGB projects naturally draw in other entities to help marginalised girls,” Rose said. “They could do so even more strategically. A single education aid project cannot reverse societal or economic constraints by itself, but it can lay the groundwork for a broader approach sustained by others, long after the original project comes to an end.”

A UK-funded programme to support out-of-school girls in low-income countries has significantly enhanced their learning, confidence, opportunities and prospects, a new report says. However, sustained, strategic and targeted investment will be needed to preserve these gains.

It is clear that we cannot just switch the support pipeline off for marginalised girls, and expect all those good results to be sustained

Pauline Rose

VSO Nepal

Young girl in Nepal

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Richest nations drift further away from 10% aid goal for pre-primary education

tdk25 — Wed, 17 May 2023 09:03:28 +0000

International aid for pre-primary education has fallen further behind an agreed 10% spending target since the COVID-19 outbreak, according to new research.

̽��ֱ��report, compiled by academics at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge for the global children’s charity, Theirworld, highlights “continued, chronic” underfunding of pre-primary education in many of the world’s poorest nations, after years of slow progress and pandemic-related cuts.

Early childhood education is widely understood to be essential to children’s successful cognitive and social development and to breaking cycles of poverty in poorer countries. In 2017, Cambridge research for Theirworld resulted in UNICEF formally recommending that 10% of education aid should be allocated to pre-primary education. Last year 147 United Nations member states signed a declaration agreeing to the target.

According to the new report’s findings, aid spending is falling far short of this goal and any progress towards the target ground to a halt following the COVID-19 outbreak. ̽��ֱ��most recent figures, from 2021, indicate that the proportion of education aid spent on pre-primary education internationally during the pandemic dropped by approximately (US)$19.7 million: from 1.2% to 1.1%.

̽��ֱ��report identifies several reasons for the decline, notably spending cuts by the World Bank’s International Development Association, EU Institutions, and by the governments of wealthy nations, such as the UK.

Professor Pauline Rose, Director of the Research for Equitable Access and Learning (REAL) Centre at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Faculty of Education said: “Hundreds of millions of children around the world are missing out on high-quality pre-primary education despite clear evidence that prioritising this will improve their life chances. ̽��ֱ��overall trend is very worrying.”

“Although some progress has been made towards the 10% target, it started from a very low base. Other education levels are still being prioritised amid a general decline in aid spending. International commitments to pre-primary education are good, but we need concrete action.”

̽��ֱ��United Nations’ 2030 Sustainable Development Goals include the ambition to provide all children with proper childcare and pre-primary education. Over the past seven years, Theirworld and the REAL Centre have systematically monitored aid spending, tracking progress towards this goal.

̽��ֱ��new report was compiled using the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s creditor report system, which gathers information about the aid contributions of both individual countries and international agencies such as UNICEF and the World Bank.

It shows that over the past two decades, the proportion of education aid spending that goes to pre-primary education has never exceeded 1.2%. Between 2020 and 2021, spending on the sector dropped from $209 million to $189.3 million: a decrease of 9.4%, compared with a 6.9% fall in education aid overall and a 0.9% decline in total aid spending. In 2021, aid spending on post-secondary education – the vast majority of which never leaves donor countries – was 27 times higher than that spent on pre-primary, despite widespread acknowledgement of the need to invest in the early years.

̽��ֱ��report nevertheless also shows that the 10% target is attainable. UNICEF, which has consistently prioritised pre-primary education, spent 30% of its education aid budget on the sector in 2021. Italy increased spending from $2.6 million to $38 million. ̽��ֱ��majority of this was allocated to the ‘National Strategy on Human Resource Development’ which focuses on supporting the Jordanian government in strengthening its education system.

̽��ֱ��research shows that pre-primary aid is highly concentrated from a few donors, leaving early childhood development in poorer countries particularly vulnerable to sudden fluctuations in those donors’ spending.

Much of the pandemic-induced drop in spending, for instance, occurred because the World Bank cut its investment in pre-primary education from $122.8 million to $70.7 million. Other donors, such as Canada, EU Institutions, France, Norway and the UK, also reduced spending in this area. In 2021, eight of the top 35 education donors allocated no funds to pre-primary education at all.

̽��ֱ��UK’s contribution was lacklustre for the world’s sixth largest economy, due in part to the Government’s controversial decision to reduce overall aid spending from the UN-recommend target of 0.7% of Gross National Income to 0.5%. Between 2020 and 2021, its education aid spending dropped from $703.67 million to $584.95 million. Aid to pre-primary was particularly badly hit, falling from an already low $5.6 million in 2020 to just $1.8 million in 2021, equivalent to a mere 0.3% of its reduced education aid budget.

̽��ֱ��report also shows that pre-primary education spending tends to be focused on lower-middle income countries rather than the very poorest nations. In 2021, just 15% of aid in this area went to countries classified as “low income”, while 52.7% was allocated to lower-middle income countries.

As a result, some of the world’s least-advantaged children have little prospect of receiving pre-primary support. Eritrea and Sudan, for example, received no pre-primary education aid in 2021. In many other poorer countries – such as the Central African Republic, Chad, Niger and Syria – the amount of aid per primary school-aged child was less than $5.

Rose said the finding pointed to the need for a model of “progressive universalism”, where those most in need receive a greater proportion of aid spending. “ ̽��ֱ��biggest gaps are in the poorest countries, and particularly among the very poorest and least advantaged,” she said. “Increasing spending on pre-primary alone will not be enough. We also have to make sure those in greatest need are prioritised.”

̽��ֱ��full report will be available on the Theirworld website.

New research shows proportion of international education aid for early childhood learning fell to just 1.1% post-pandemic, far short of an agreed 10% target.

̽��ֱ��biggest gaps are in the poorest countries, and particularly among the very poorest and least advantaged

Pauline Rose

Ahmed Akacha

Children in Idlib Governorate, Syria: one of the countries most seriously affected by the underfunding of pre-primary education

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COVID has 'ruptured' social skills of the world’s poorest children, study suggests

tdk25 — Wed, 30 Nov 2022 08:41:35 +0000

School closures during the COVID-19 pandemic have “severely ruptured” the social and emotional development of some of the world’s poorest children, as well as their academic progress, new evidence shows.

In a study of over 2,000 primary school pupils in Ethiopia, researchers found that key aspects of children’s social and emotional development, such as their ability to make friends, not only stalled during the school closures, but probably deteriorated.

Children who, prior to the pandemic, felt confident talking to others or got on well with peers were less likely to do so by 2021. Those who were already disadvantaged educationally – girls, the very poorest, and those from rural areas – seem to have been particularly badly affected.

Both this research and a second, linked study of around 6,000 grade 1 and 4 primary school children, also found evidence of slowed academic progress. Children lost the equivalent of at least one third of an academic year in learning during lockdown – an estimate researchers describe as “conservative”. This appears to have widened an already significant attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and the rest, and there is some evidence that this may be linked to the drop in social skills.

Both studies were by academics from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, UK and Addis Ababa ̽��ֱ��, Ethiopia.

Professor Pauline Rose, Director of the Research in Equitable Access and Learning (REAL) Centre at the Faculty of Education, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “COVID is having a long-term impact on children everywhere, but especially in lower-income countries. Education aid and government funding must focus on supporting both the academic and socio-emotional recovery of the most disadvantaged children first.”

Professor Tassew Woldehanna, President of Addis Ababa ̽��ֱ��, said: “These severe ruptures to children’s developmental and learning trajectories underline how much we need to think about the impact on social, and not just academic skills. Catch-up education must address the two together.”

Both studies used data from the Research on Improving Systems of Education (RISE) programme in Ethiopia to compare primary education before the pandemic, in the academic year 2018/19, with the situation in 2020/21.

In the first study, researchers compared the numeracy test scores of 2,700 Grade 4 pupils in June 2019 with their scores shortly after they returned to school, in January 2021. They also measured dropout rates. In addition, pupils completed the Children’s Self Report Social Skills scale, which asked how much they agreed or disagreed with statements such as “I feel confident talking to others”, “I make friends easily”, and “If I hurt someone, I say sorry”.

̽��ֱ��second study measured relative progress during the pandemic using the numeracy scores of two separate cohorts of Grade 1 and Grade 4 pupils. ̽��ֱ��first of these cohorts was from the pre-pandemic year; the other from 2020/21.

̽��ֱ��results suggest pupils made some academic progress during the closures, but at a slower than expected rate. ̽��ֱ��average foundational numeracy score of Grade 1 pupils in 2020/21 was 15 points behind the 2018/19 cohort; by the end of the year that gap had widened to 19 points. Similarly, Grade 4 students started 2020/21 10 points behind their predecessor cohort, and were 12 points adrift by the end. That difference amounted to roughly one third of a year’s progress. Similar patterns emerged from the study of children’s numeracy scores before and after the closures.

Poorer children, and those from rural backgrounds, consistently performed worse academically. Dropout rates revealed similar issues: of the 2,700 children assessed in 2019 and 2021, more than one in 10 (11.3%) dropped out of school during the closures. These were disproportionately girls, or lower-achieving pupils, who tended to be from less wealthy or rural families.

All pupils’ social skills declined during the closure period, regardless of gender or location. Fewer children agreed in 2021 with statements such as “Other people like me” or “I make friends easily”. ̽��ֱ��decline in positive responses differed by demographic, and was sharpest among those from rural settings. This may be because children from remote parts of the country experienced greater isolation during lockdown.

̽��ֱ��most striking evidence of a rupture in socio-emotional development was the lack of a predictive association between the 2019 and 2021 results. Pupils who felt confident talking to others before the pandemic, for example, had often changed their minds two years later.

Researchers suggest that the negative impact on social and emotional development may be linked to the slowdown in academic attainment. Children who did better academically in 2021 tended to report stronger social skills. This association is not necessarily causal, but there is evidence that academic attainment improves children’s self-confidence and esteem, and that prosocial behaviours positively influence academic outcomes. It is therefore possible that during the school closures this potential reinforcement was reversed.

Both reports echo previous research which suggests that lower-income countries such as Ethiopia need to invest in targeted programmes for girls, those from rural backgrounds, and the very poorest, if they are to prevent these children from being left behind. Alongside in-school catch-up programmes, action may be required to support those who are out of school. Ghana’s successful Complementary Basic Education initiative provides one model.

In addition, the researchers urge education policy actors to integrate support for social skills into both catch-up education and planning for future closures. “Social and emotional skills should be an explicit goal of the curriculum and other guidance,” Rose said. “Schools may also want to think about after-school clubs, safe spaces for girls, and ensuring that primary-age children stay with the same group of friends during the day. Initiatives like these will go some way towards rebuilding the prosocial skills the pandemic has eroded.”

Ruptured School Trajectories is published in the journal, Longitudinal and Life Course Studies. Learning Losses during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Ethiopia, is available on the REAL Centre website.

Two interlinked studies, involving 8,000 primary pupils altogether, indicate children lost at least a third of a year in learning during lockdown.

Education aid and government funding must focus on supporting both the academic and socio-emotional recovery of the most disadvantaged children first

Pauline Rose

Mustafacevcek via Pixabay

Young children in Ethiopia

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Students in Rwanda confound pandemic predictions and head back to school

tdk25 — Fri, 07 Oct 2022 08:08:35 +0000

Ever since the pandemic forced schools around the world to close, analysts, academics and teachers have been warning that many students in poorer countries might not return. According to some estimates, more than 10 million school-age students are at risk of dropping out worldwide. There have been particular concerns about marginalised groups such as the very poorest children and girls.

̽��ֱ��new study, which used enrolment data from 358 Rwandan secondary schools, collected both before and after the closures, found that rather than undergoing a sharp fall, student numbers actually rose when schools reopened. ̽��ֱ��cause appears to have been a combination of existing students returning, and the enrolment of other pupils who were out of school before the pandemic began.

Researchers say that this may represent an emerging trend, because as-yet unpublished results from other sub-Saharan countries, such as Ethiopia and Malawi, similarly show no steep fall in numbers.

Despite this, a more gradual, long-term decline in the numbers of children in school may be underway. ̽��ֱ��research tracked enrolment past the point where schools reopened in Rwanda, and up to May 2021. By that stage, some students did appear to be dropping out of the system. This was particularly true of those from marginalised groups.

̽��ֱ��research was undertaken by a team from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and the East African research and data collection firm, Laterite, and was carried out for the Mastercard Foundation’s Leaders in Teaching Initiative.

Professor Pauline Rose, Director of the Research for Equitable Access and Learning (REAL) Centre, at the Faculty of Education, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “Given the seriousness of the impact of COVID-19, I wouldn’t have been surprised if enrolment rates had halved when schools reopened. We are still developing a comprehensive picture of the situation across Sub-Saharan Africa, but the impact on drop-outs appears far less extreme than initially feared.”

“It is important we continue to monitor the situation. There was clearly real enthusiasm for schools to reopen at first, but there are now signs that some children may potentially be disappearing from the system.”

Schools in Rwanda closed in March 2020 and did not reopen until November, when they did so on a staggered basis. ̽��ֱ��research collected aggregate enrolment data from before the pandemic, in February 2020, and a year later, in February 2021.

This showed that after schools reopened, enrolment rates rose in the Secondary 1 and Secondary 4 year groups: natural entry points into the Rwandan system because they mark the start of lower and upper secondary school respectively. Enrolment rose by 7% at the Secondary 1 level, and 11% at Secondary 4, in February 2021. Numbers remained steady in the other year groups.

Crucially, the Rwanda Basic Education Board decided to make all students return to the year group that they were previously in when schools reopened. This means that the Secondary 1 and 4 year groups comprised the same cohorts across 2020 and 2021. ̽��ֱ��rise in numbers was therefore almost certainly due to students who had previously dropped out re-joining their cohort in February 2021.

̽��ֱ��study also gathered both enrolment and assessment data from a sample of 2,800 students in the Secondary 3 year group, which it followed up to May 2021.

By that stage, researchers found, some students had started to drop out. About 89% of the entire sample group were still in school by May 2021, but the figure was lower among girls, and particularly among students who were over the ‘expected’ cohort age because they had been kept back an additional year or more. ̽��ֱ��overage group were also disproportionately likely to come from less-wealthy backgrounds.

“Keeping track of these children is really important,” Mico Rudasingwa, Research Associate at Laterite said. “By the time they reach adolescence, those from the poorest backgrounds in particular are in danger of dropping out early to support with income generating activities for the household.”

̽��ֱ��sample group of students also took a learning assessment, in the form of a numeracy test, in February 2020, and again in May 2021 – two terms after their return to school. ̽��ֱ��results were measured using a ‘latent ability score’ – given as a figure between 0 and 1 – which takes into account not only how many questions they got right, but how difficult those questions were. ̽��ֱ��average score rose from 0.47 in the first test to 0.52 in the second. Over 90% of the schools in the sample group recorded an average improvement in numeracy scores.

Although positive, these results should be treated with caution, as there is no counterfactual evidence available about how much their test results might have improved had the school closures never occurred. ̽��ֱ��learning levels of some groups also improved more than others. Boys generally outperformed girls by about 0.02 points on the latent ability scale, while overage students again lagged behind their peers, by about 0.03 points.

̽��ֱ��study also collected teacher retention data by tracking 1,700 teachers in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects before and after the closures. Around 94% of STEM teachers returned to their classes in early 2021, and almost half the schools surveyed saw an overall increase in STEM teachers through new recruitment. ̽��ֱ��report describes this low turnover rate as ‘encouraging’.

̽��ֱ��full report is available on the REAL Centre website.

New data from Rwanda, and some of the first published on how COVID-19 has impacted school attendance in the Global South, suggest that a widely-predicted spike in drop-out rates has “not materialised”.

We are still developing a comprehensive picture of the situation across Sub-Saharan Africa, but the impact on drop-outs appears far less extreme than initially feared

Pauline Rose

Jannik Skorna via Unsplash

Schoolchildren in Rwanda

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Poorly conceived payment-on-results funding threatens to undermine education aid

tdk25 — Wed, 30 Mar 2022 11:38:04 +0000

A payment on results approach to delivering education aid, which is championed by international institutions including the World Bank, is in danger of backfiring in some of the countries it aims to help, researchers believe.

̽��ֱ��concerns are raised in a new study, by academics at the Universities of Cambridge and Addis Ababa, which examines results-based financing in education and heavily critiques one such programme in Ethiopia. It urges donors not to treat the approach as a “magic bullet” for poorer countries, echoing other studies which have flagged similar doubts.

Results-based financing is a funding model that has been widely adopted by Western governments and institutions to provide education aid to lower-income countries. Rather than handing out grants up front, the approach requires recipient governments to meet a set of target conditions which are agreed with donors in advance. ̽��ֱ��money is released as these conditions are met.

̽��ֱ��targets vary, but typically involve improvements to attainment and enrolment in schools. According to the World Bank, results-based financing “could have a substantial impact in terms of achieving results that matter” in support of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

̽��ֱ��new study examined the ‘Programme for Results’ (PforR) scheme: a results-based financing package underpinning the latest phase of the Ethiopian government’s education reforms. This draws on a pooled fund, supported by a consortium of donors led by the World Bank.

Although the research is broadly supportive of the principle of linking funding to results, it found that several aspects of the financing project were unfit for purpose from the start. Many of the targets set through PforR, for example, fell short of those of the education reforms themselves. ̽��ֱ��researchers also argue that key groups of children, such as those with disabilities, were overlooked in the target-setting; inadequate systems were put in place to measure results, and some local authorities were unaware of the new system months after it began.

Professor Pauline Rose, Director of the Research for Equitable Access and Learning (REAL) Centre, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “ ̽��ֱ��shortcomings we identified suggest that the potential for this results-based financing programme to improve education and learning is limited. In the worst-case scenario, it could end up undermining the very reforms it is meant to support.”

̽��ֱ��study is not the first to question how results-based financing packages are being structured and implemented. Similar problems have been highlighted in several previous assessments, including an evaluation of a pilot programme in Ethiopia in 2015, and an assessment of funding programmes in Mozambique, Nepal and Tanzania, in 2021.

̽��ֱ��PforR initiative began in 2018 and is expected to run until 2023. Researchers examined the original programme appraisal document, and interviewed 72 of the donors and government officials responsible for its creation and delivery.

They found that many targets set through the scheme failed to match the ambition of the Ethiopian government’s reforms. Just 40% were linked to improving academic results, which is the principal aim of the government’s initiative. ̽��ֱ��PforR plan also specified that attainment should be measured at 2,000 schools which had been earmarked as requiring improvement. ̽��ֱ��bar set for the attainment targets that would unlock further funding was therefore often low; one donor described them as “a bit soft”.

While some of these targets took gender parity into account, researchers found that they overlooked other equity issues, such as how far education reforms were supporting marginalised groups including children with disabilities and those from the poorest backgrounds.

In the few cases where the PforR plan did specify targets for these groups, they were often widely considered to be inadequate. For example, education officials told the researchers that they had raised concerns at the plan’s draft stage about a target for expanding the number of Inclusive Education Resource Centres in Ethiopia. ̽��ֱ��researchers calculate that this target, if achieved, would affect just 10% of schools and fail to reach the majority of children with disabilities. ̽��ֱ��feedback raising this concern was never taken into account.

̽��ֱ��paper criticises what appears to be a back-to-front approach to data-gathering. Several interviewees observed that systems were not in place to measure whether the PforR targets were being met before the programme started. Instead, improving data collection was itself set as a goal. In some cases, the study finds, this may mean that inaccurate information produced under the old, faulty system is likely to be contradicted mid-programme, creating the false impression that some targets are being missed.

̽��ֱ��analysis also found a “significant gap in knowledge” about the programme’s introduction among regional and woreda (district) officials in the local education authorities charged with delivering results.

Months after it commenced, one official told researchers that he had “no clear understanding” of what ‘Programme for Results’ meant or involved. Another said that they had only heard “a rumour that the school grant is to be changed”. “These interviews were carried out during the first year of the implementation,” co-author, Dr Belay Hagos from Addis Ababa ̽��ֱ��, said. “We didn’t expect everyone to have a comprehensive knowledge of what it involved, but we did expect they would at least be aware of it.”

̽��ֱ��authors suggest that these findings add further weight to existing evidence that some results-based financing packages are being implemented without adequate, contextualised planning, and without necessary preconditions – such as data-gathering measures – in place.

Rose added that there were doubts about how more recent developments in Ethiopia – notably the double shock of COVID-19 and conflict – would affect the arrangements. “Some of the education reforms to which the funding is tied have inevitably ground to a halt since 2018,” she said. “It is not entirely clear who will be responsible when results aren’t achieved in this context, and what sort of funding the government might eventually receive.”

̽��ֱ��research is published in Third World Quarterly.

Analysis of a results-based-financing programme for education aid in Ethiopia finds that multiple aspects of the arrangement were unfit for purpose from the start and could undermine education reforms.

Some of the education reforms to which the funding is tied have inevitably ground to a halt since 2018

Pauline Rose

Taylor Wilcox

Children leaving school in Ale, Ethiopia

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Teachers leading global drive to improve girls’ education became frontline workers during COVID-19 closures

tdk25 — Fri, 04 Feb 2022 10:04:49 +0000

Their experiences are captured in a Government-commissioned report assessing UK-funded programmes for marginalised girls in some of the poorest parts of the world. It shows that when COVID-19 forced schools to close, the roles of educators working for these projects expanded dramatically.

Around 85% of those interviewed by researchers said they had provided some form of physical or mental health assistance on top of their educational duties. Many appear to have gone to extraordinary lengths to provide critical healthcare, safeguarding and pastoral care to girls who were at extreme risk of dropping out of education, amid efforts to keep them learning.

̽��ֱ��independent report for the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office assesses the Government-backed ‘Girls’ Education Challenge’ (GEC), which is providing literacy, numeracy and life skills education to a million of the world’s most marginalised girls.

Professor Pauline Rose, Director of the Research for Equitable Access and Learning (REAL) Centre, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, and one of the authors, said: “When schools closed, the GEC projects underwent a transformation, operating not just as educational initiatives, but assuming a humanitarian role. Without this, the pandemic’s impact on girls’ learning might have been even more severe.”

̽��ֱ��research team analysed 10 GEC projects, all of which use networks of teachers, volunteers and ‘para-educators’ (such as mentors) to meet the complex challenge of supporting girls in communities that are under-resourced, remote and often in recent or current war zones.

They focused in particular detail on two projects in Afghanistan, and one each in Ghana and Sierra Leone. Their analysis involved interviews with staff, pupils, government officials and other stakeholders; as well as classroom observations and a wider impact assessment. ̽��ֱ��work was undertaken before the international withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021.

̽��ֱ��report highlights how the pandemic unleashed new difficulties which further impeded educational opportunities for girls in countries where their enrolment and attainment is already low. Once schools closed, their families often expected them to perform domestic or income-generating labour, or get married, rather than learn. Closures also cut off their access to teachers, who for some were trusted confidantes. This contributed to a surge in health problems, stress and anxiety.

At the same time, national-level remote learning programmes often failed to reach these girls, who often lacked not just computers, televisions and radios, but sometimes a reliable electricity supply. In Ghana, for example, 80% of the pupils interviewed were aware that TV lessons were being broadcast in their country, but only 34% had been able to watch them.

Under these circumstances, the report finds, educators on the GEC projects took on a pivotal ‘bridging’ role – especially female, community-based teachers, who were able to establish vital face-to-face contact with students. For safeguarding reasons, male staff were unable to do the same.

To keep students learning, teachers provided numerous other forms of support. Some helped refer pupils who were struggling to community or social services, while many disseminated COVID-19 safety information and dropped off PPE supplies. ̽��ֱ��report records cases of teachers helping girls who were pregnant, or in one case providing ad hoc support to a pupil with epilepsy.

Project managers also arranged for TVs and decoders to be distributed to households so that students could tune in to lessons, and for teachers to be given mobile phones so that they could stay in touch with students. This proved critically important for pupils who largely struggled with self-directed learning. One Afghan girl, for example, recalled: “ ̽��ֱ��lack of guidance prevented us from studying so we could not read our lessons well. When I called the teacher, our mobile card ran out.”

Project managers organised extra training for staff in areas such as psychological first aid, stress management, wellbeing support, and COVID-19 mitigation. Teachers also received child protection and gender equality training, partly in response to evidence of a rise in gender-related violence.

̽��ֱ��Sierra Leonean project, which gathered specific data on this issue, found that 19% of girls and 20% of female mentors reported increased violence towards women and girls during the pandemic, rising to 38% in one district. In recognition of the extent of gender-based violence, projects put in place several measures to address it and ensure teachers were equipped to do the same. Many teachers interviewed for the report particularly welcome this guidance.

In general, teachers felt that the additional training they have received during the pandemic improved their ability to do their job by attending to the welfare of their students. Little attention appears to have been paid to their own wellbeing, however. “ ̽��ֱ��additional work they were shouldering affected their own mental health, led to work-related burnout, and put extra pressure on their home life,” Rose said. This was especially the case for female teachers.

Among multiple recommendations, the report calls for:

̽��ֱ��recruitment of more community-based, female teachers, who played a critical role in keeping girls’ learning going during closures.
Closer integration between the GEC projects and health, social care, and other services, given teachers’ widened responsibilities.
More provision for two-way contact between teachers and students in future lockdowns, to ensure that pupils receive appropriate guidance and feedback when learning remotely.
More wellbeing support for teachers, as well as their students.

Rose added: “As we start to build back from COVID-19, we need to examine what these additional expectations and pressures mean for teachers and education systems. We should look particularly hard at the implications for burnout, recruitment, retention and training.”

̽��ֱ��full report is available on the Girls’ Education Challenge website.

Interviews with teachers at the forefront of international efforts to improve girls’ education reveal that many have taken on humanitarian roles, as well as working as educators, during the COVID-19 crisis.

As we start to build back from COVID-19, we need to examine what these additional expectations and pressures mean for teachers and education systems

Pauline Rose

Pixabay

Girls in a classroom in Afghanistan

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