Site of the publication: ID Insight
Type of publication: Report
Date of publication: 2021
Rising Academy Network (RAN) provides quality education in 157 government and private schools in Liberia, Ghana Sierra Leone. In 2020, schools, including those operated by RAN, were closed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. At first, one concern for educational providers was to ensure that children, particularly girls, return to school after the lockdown. Evidence from the Ebola crisis found that 25% of students in Sierra Leone and 13% of students in Liberia did not return to school after the epidemic1 . Given concerns that school closures due to COVID could have a similar impact as closures due to Ebola on enrollment, RAN partnered with IDinsight to assess the impact of the prolonged school closure on retention of children and particularly girls in school.
Effects of COVID-19 on schooling
Dropouts and continued enrollment
In the first round of data collection, conducted in January-February 2021, we found that 97% of students who had been enrolled pre-COVID re-enrolled when schools reopened in late 2020 and early 2021.7 During this round (July 2021), enrollment rates were similar, with only 2.8% of previously-enrolled students failing to re-enroll in school.9 Since February 2021, enrollment rates increased slightly in Ghana and Sierra Leone, but fell slightly in Liberia, where 4.5% of students were not enrolled in July compared to 2.3% in February.
Barriers to enrollment
One concern with prolonged school closures is that there could be an increase in teenage pregnancy and child marriage. However, we found that pregnancy and marriage were comparatively rare in our survey population; though girls over 12 years made up 53% of the sample. Four caregivers, representing 7.7% of caregivers of dropouts who are 12 years or older, cited pregnancy or marriage as a reason for their students not re-enrolling in school.
COVID-19’s impact on student performance and well-being
Despite school disruptions, caregivers are optimistic about their students’ performance and well-being this year. A majority (72.1%) of caregivers believe that children are likely to get better grades this year than they did before schools closed in March 2020 and only 10.7% expect their children’s grades to decline.
Most students have basic writing and reading materials at home, including pens or pencils (92.6%) and paper or exercise books (82.7%). Many students have a quiet space to study (67.4%), though this is less common for students in Ghana (48.3%), and some students have a chair (46.5%) and a desk or table (43.9%), though these are less common for students in Liberia. There are greater disparities in access to technology-based learning tools than for low-tech learning tools. While 41.7% of caregivers report having a smartphone, this varies from 87.6% in Sierra Leone private schools to 26.4% in Liberia public schools. Handsets (or non-smart phones) are relatively more common in Liberia (72.2%) than elsewhere
Student activities during school closures
The transition to remote learning in 2020 led to a large decrease in time spent on education. In the first round, we found that the average student spent 5.7 fewer hours per weekday in education-related activities, or nearly the total duration of the school day. In Round 2 we asked caregivers to describe how the limited time allocated to learning during school closures was spent on various educational activities. These results can be used to inform remote learning strategies for future school closures.
The most common type of learning activity during school closures in 2020 were private classes (attended by 48.4% of students), followed by using school workbooks (23.7%), community study groups (17.8%) and radio lessons (9.1%). Few students (12.3%) did not engage in any learning activities. Besides learning, caregivers mentioned that students spent their time during school closures doing household chores (70.6%), playing with other children (42.6%), doing nothing (13.8%), and engaging in income generating activities (10.1%). Girls were more likely to spend time doing chores than boys, whereas boys were more likely to play with friends or play by themselves.
Learning tools available to students
Most students have basic writing and reading materials at home, including pens or pencils (92.6%) and paper or exercise books (82.7%). Many students have a quiet space to study (67.4%), though this is less common for students in Ghana (48.3%), and some students have a chair (46.5%) and a desk or table (43.9%), though these are less common for students in Liberia. There are greater disparities in access to technology-based learning tools than for low-tech learning tools. While 41.7% of caregivers report having a smartphone, this varies from 87.6% in Sierra Leone private schools to 26.4% in Liberia public schools. Handsets (or non-smart phones) are relatively more common in Liberia (72.2%) than elsewhere.
Radios and TVs are common among Ghana and SL private schools students, but less so across all the student population. Computers or tablets are relatively less common but availability varies across countries. 9.1% of care givers reported not having access to any of the 5 technology tools mentioned in the survey.
Additional support for students
In terms of general safety, 62.2% [60.1%, 64.3%] of caregivers rated the school environment as very safe. Most (75.4%) caregivers perceive that their children are safer after schools reopened than they were before school closures. For those who mentioned that the school environment is not safe, their concerns were mostly around the surrounding area (37.8%), as well as the school not having measures in place to protect students, ranging from teachers not protecting them to poor water quality, bad infrastructure and overcrowding in the classrooms (47.2%).
We observe that 8.7% of caregivers report hearing about teachers beating children at school for misbehaving. Concerning their own child, 6.8% of caregivers say that their children have received corporal punishment at school. We also observe that 1.7% report having heard of children being sexually abused at school and fewer (0.6%) mentioned that their children were specifically abused at school. The differences across genders and school type are not significant.
In Liberia, 54.5% of the caregivers interviewed had enrolled their children in the school before RAN began administering it. Caregivers perceive that the schools are generally safer (87.2%) now than before RAN’s administration, though this appears to be driven neither by changes in the prevalence of corporal punishment nor by changes in the prevalence of sexual abuse. In SL public schools, 50% of respondents reported that school staff have shared information concerning school safety and child’s protection.
Radios and TVs are common among Ghana and SL private schools students, but less so across all the student population. Computers or tablets are relatively less common but availability varies across countries. 9.1% of care givers reported not having access to any of the 5 technology tools mentioned in the survey
Discussion and Recommendations
In light of these findings, understanding the needs and preferences for remote learning is crucial in order to mitigate further disruptions in education from future school closures. The results from this round show a low prevalence of high-tech tools in a majority of households, as well as a preference towards low-tech tools for distance learning, suggesting the need for a careful assessment of potential remote learning strategies that leave no child behind. Finally, while schools are generally perceived as safe places, with improvements in that dimension since RAN came into management, there remains scope for further improvement. Despite the existence of policies aimed at reducing the use of corporal punishment in schools, this practice is still widely spread in countries like Liberia. In order for policies to be more effective, these need to be accompanied by monitoring and accountability mechanisms that allow RAN to act and respond to cases of corporal punishment.
- Communicate the measures being taken in schools to keep children safe during COVID. Establishing protocols in schools to keep children safe from COVID and communicating them to caregivers may reassure caregivers about the safety of in person schooling, and increase their likelihood of sending their children to school.
- Support home learning activities and engage caregivers in the process. School providers can support caregivers in creating an environment conducive to learning at home. Ensuring that all children have access to basic learning materials like pencils and paper, and a dedicated space for studying are critical to enabling learning at home.
- Effective distance learning requires a multi-modal approach that can reach both the children who can access edtech technologies and those who cannot.
- Incorporating safeguarding can contribute to making schools a safer environment. While most caregivers do not report being concerned with safety in schools, they also agree that RAN’s efforts have contributed in making schools a safe environment. Continuing with these efforts and implementing safeguarding measures, as well as support structures for students suffering from violence, can improve safety in schools.