GCRF_NF46 Children's learning and development in the time of Covid19: Evidence from an ongoing longitudinal study in Ghana
Lead Research Organisation:
Imperial College London
Department Name: Imperial College Business School
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic and related social and economic crises are undermining children's education in low- and middle-income countries through school closures, unequal access to remote-learning activities, and increased household food insecurity and poverty. Groups at greater risk, including girls and children from the poorest families, are likely being disproportionately affected, amplifying existing inequalities in child education, health and broader development.
We embed in an ongoing longitudinal project, Quality Preschool for Ghana, a study of the pandemic's repercussions on children's education and broader development for a representative sample of urban Ghanaian boys and girls aged 10-12 years (N=~2,000), their households, and teachers (N=~400).
We have four main goals. First, we investigate household and child vulnerability and resilience to the crisis, with three phone surveys with parents and one phone survey with children starting in late summer, followed by already-funded child and parent direct assessments later in the 2020-2021 school-year. Second, with three additional phone surveys with teachers, we generate new data on how children, parents and teachers are faring with the remote-learning implemented during school closures and with re-entry into in-person schooling should that happen in the 2020-21 school year. Third, by piggy-backing on already-funded data collection activities planned for later in the Fall 2020 and Spring 2021, and combined with four prior rounds of data on these children starting in preschool, we examine inequalities in the effects of the crisis on learning and broader child development domains (health, psycho-social outcomes). Fourth, we monitor changes in poverty and food security and examine their associations with later-in-life children's educational outcomes.
The proposed study provides the Ghanaian government with unique, real-time data to inform remote-learning, school-reentry, how children, families and teachers are coping with the crisis, and social-protection efforts. Results will provide timely and much-needed academic and policy insights for Ghana and broader global educational efforts to protect children from the long-term effects of the pandemic on their learning and development.
We embed in an ongoing longitudinal project, Quality Preschool for Ghana, a study of the pandemic's repercussions on children's education and broader development for a representative sample of urban Ghanaian boys and girls aged 10-12 years (N=~2,000), their households, and teachers (N=~400).
We have four main goals. First, we investigate household and child vulnerability and resilience to the crisis, with three phone surveys with parents and one phone survey with children starting in late summer, followed by already-funded child and parent direct assessments later in the 2020-2021 school-year. Second, with three additional phone surveys with teachers, we generate new data on how children, parents and teachers are faring with the remote-learning implemented during school closures and with re-entry into in-person schooling should that happen in the 2020-21 school year. Third, by piggy-backing on already-funded data collection activities planned for later in the Fall 2020 and Spring 2021, and combined with four prior rounds of data on these children starting in preschool, we examine inequalities in the effects of the crisis on learning and broader child development domains (health, psycho-social outcomes). Fourth, we monitor changes in poverty and food security and examine their associations with later-in-life children's educational outcomes.
The proposed study provides the Ghanaian government with unique, real-time data to inform remote-learning, school-reentry, how children, families and teachers are coping with the crisis, and social-protection efforts. Results will provide timely and much-needed academic and policy insights for Ghana and broader global educational efforts to protect children from the long-term effects of the pandemic on their learning and development.
Publications
Wolf S
(2022)
Medium-term protective effects of quality early childhood education during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ghana.
in Child development
Wolf S
(2022)
Remote learning engagement and learning outcomes during school closures in Ghana
in International Journal of Educational Research
| Description | So far, we have the following key findings from the first round of surveys: 1. Private schools offered more distance learning and personalized learning opportunities to students than public schools. Only slightly more than half of teachers reported that their schools offered some distance learning activities while schools were closed, with no large differences between public and private schools. School type, however, mattered for the type of distance learning activities that schools were offering. Private schools provided more individualized distance learning materials to students and communicated directly with families through online classes or instant messages. Public school teachers were more likely to provide assignments to their students through hardcopy materials and to encourage participation in government educational programming. 2. Many children faced barriers and lacked vital educational resources and support from both teachers and caregivers while attempting to engage in distance learning. public school children participated at lower rates than their private school counterparts and had less access to educational resources including such as the Internet, technological devices, radio, and television. Overall, 12% and 19% of children who attended private and public schools, respectively, reported receiving no support at all from their caregiver. For those who received support, the type of support children received from their caregivers varied by the type of school they were attending prior to school closures. Public school children had less access to textbooks, internet connectivity, smart devices and other tools that would assist in bridge the gap between learning in the classroom and learning at home. 3. Students with disabilities had a great difficulty accessing distance learning material provided by their schools, creating larger educational gaps. Students with disabilities made up about 2% of this sample, the most commonly diagnoses being intellectual disabilities, visually and hearing impaired. 74% of teachers were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with the accessibility of TV and radio distance learning for children with disabilities. Likewise, 65% of caregivers indicated that either distance learning and/or education resources provided by the school were not accessible for children with disabilities. 4. Learning inequalities by school type and socioeconomic status are large. Even while controlling for previous literacy and numeracy scores from earlier rounds of surveys assessing the same childre, private school children outperformed their public school peers by 0.27 and 0.35 s.d., respectively. Likewise, students with high socioeconomic status experienced similar increases in both literacy and numeracy scores. No noticeable difference is found between scores across gender. 5. 30% of children reported hunger in the previous month, with larger rates for low socioeconomic status, boys and public school children. As of March 2022, we note the following additional findings: (i) Early childhood education acts as a protective factor for children's engagement in education during crises We report here the results for a study (R&R, Child Development) examining the role of QP4G in supporting learning engagement during the pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic led to extended school closures globally. Access to remote learning opportunities during this time was vastly unequal within and across countries. Higher-quality early childhood education (ECE) can improve later academic outcomes, but longer-term effects during crises are unknown. This study provides the first experimental evidence of how previously attending a higher-quality ECE program affected child engagement in remote learning and academic scores during pandemic-related school closures in Ghana. Children (N=1,668; 50.1% male; Mage=10.1 years; all Ghanaian nationals) who attended a higher-quality ECE program at age 4/5 years had greater engagement in remote learning activities (d=0.14), but not better scores in language and literacy and math. Previous exposure to higher-quality ECE may support child educational engagement during crises. (ii) Effects of the pandemic on teachers. These findings are captured in a IPA policy brief (reported in the engagement section). Teachers were also highly affected by the pandemic. Among other findings, we highlight the following: • Nearly 20% of teachers left the teaching profession when schools reopened. Those who left teaching were more likely to work in a private school. • Upon reopening schools, teachers were concerned about a wide array of issues. The most highly reported was the health and safety of their students and themselves. • As students returned to school, nearly half of teachers reported that more than 50 percent of their students are behind in learning. Twenty-one percent indicate that the learning loss is "very large." • To address learning loss once schools re-opened, teachers most frequently reported assigning extra homework (59 percent) and holding remedial or after school classes (39 percent) to mitigate this loss. Private school teachers reported organizing more after school classes for students (44 percent versus 33 percent of public-school teachers). This finding is consistent with the pattern observed during distance learning, whereby private school teachers were also more likely to engage students in individualized learning activities during those months. As of March 2023, we report the following findings/results: In 2022, we published "Medium-term protective effects of quality early childhood education during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ghana in Child Development, one of the most respected developmental journal focusing on children (Scimago Q1, Education and Developmental Psychology, H-Index: 268). This is the first study we are aware of documenting the protective effects of early childhood quality education on school engagement during crises and when schools are closed, as during the COVID19 pandemic. One possible explanation could be attributed to the sustained impacts on children's social-emotional and executive function outcomes, which perhaps provided children with transferable skills that helped them navigate and respond to schooling and other challenges during the pandemic. This result highlights that evaluations examining medium-and longer-term ECE impacts should broaden the nonacademic outcomes examined. We thank UKRI for supporting this important effort, as funding for long-term follow-ups of experiments are rare. Despite increased engagement in remote learning activities for the the treatment group in the original experiment, we did not find improvements in children's language/literacy and math scores for either treatment arm. One possible explanation is that our learning assessments were brief, administered over the phone, and consequently only provided very cursory estimates of children's abilities (i.e., oral reading assessments were not possible). Phone-based learning assessments are new and best practices are still being developed. Ours was one of the first in LMICs. In our sample, 14% of children reported that someone in their households helped them during the phone-based assessments. Thus, interpreting the findings related to learning outcomes should consider these key measurement challenges, which have been also observed elsewhere (Crawfurd et al., 2021). A second explanation is that small increases in engagement are not enough to translate into improved language/literacy and math skills. A third possibility is that while children's remote learning involvement increased, the qualities of activities were poor and children did not gain academic skills despite their engagement. Alternatively, it is possible that there simply were no sustained impacts of quality early childhood education (ECE) on children's academic skill levels. Importantly, the language/ literacy and math measures were not specifically aligned with Ghana's grade-level curriculum, making it impossible to draw inferences about protective effects for grade-level learning and progression. As schools re-opened in Ghana in January 2021, children were again tracked in schools and direct assessments were conducted. These additional data will allow us to assess sustained impacts on children's re-enrollment in school, as well as a broader set of learning and developmental outcomes. Analysis of these data is currently in progress, and we observe persistent effects on literacy test scores of children participating in the quality ECE arm, as well as improvements in social-emotional skills as reported by teachers. Finally, despite magnified inequalities documented by household SES and child sex in educational engagement during school closures in ours and other contexts, we did not find differential persistent effects for either subgroup. This lends additional support to previous studies suggesting that the ECE intervention had uniform effects on subgroups of children. Secondly, we published " Remote learning engagement and learning outcomes during school closures in Ghana" in the International Journal of Educational Research (SCIMAGO IQ1, Education). This study reports the findings from the first round of surveys with caregivers, teachers and children during the school closures in 2020. We capitalised on a unique longitudinal sample that was possible thanks to the support of UKRI, where we had measured learning levels of children before the pandemic, to examine the following four research questions: 1. Which activities did primary schools offer during school closures, and did children engage with remote learning opportunities? Only 53% of teachers (N = 274 across 203 schools) reported that their schools offered any remote learning activities. Private schools were more likely than public schools to promote individualized learning, provide online classes (42.28% versus 5.51%, p < .001) and provide materials via WhatsApp, email, or text (61.74% versus 15.75%, p < .001). In contrast, public schools were more likely to supply generalized learning support through the encouragement of participating in educational TV and radio programming (77.95% versus 26.17%, p < .001) and providing hardcopy materials to their students (77.95% versus 32.21%, p < .001). Reports from children and caregivers reflect the same patterns. Notably, only 8.2% of children did not report engaging in any form of remote learning activity, though rates for most of these activities were generally low. The second and third panels of Table 2 display rates of participation in five common remote learning activities. In both caregivers' _and children's reports, children in private schools were significantly more likely to engage in online courses (9.1% versus 2.9% and 9.9% versus 2.89%, p < .001, for children's and caregivers' _reports, respectively), have access to private tutors (32.6% versus 20.4% and 38.1% versus 37.4%, p < .001, for children's and caregivers' _reports, respectively), and receive assignments from their teachers (38.2% versus 25.7% and 50.0% versus 36.2%, p < .001, for children's and caregivers' _reports, respectively). No statistically significant differences were found for children's independent study or use of educational TV or radio for children's or caregivers' _reports. 2. What supports and barriers to remote learning engagement did students encounter? Most children, across both private and public schools, had access to basic writing materials, electricity, school textbooks, and televisions. However, few children had access to technological devices including tablets, computers or laptops, and internet connectivity, particularly children in public schools. The largest disparities in children's access to learning materials at home by school type were for internet connectivity, space for learning at home, access to school textbooks, and access to tablets or e-readers. Table 3 presents child reports on how caregivers supported children's remote learning during school closures. Children who attended private schools generally reported higher levels of support, including in organizing study groups, help accessing mobile applications, calling teachers or head teachers, helping with homework, buying learning materials, and telling children to study. 3. Controlling for previous test scores, were household economic shocks associated with less remote learning engagement and worse literacy and math test scores for students? Most caregivers reported a disruption in daily wages/earnings (65.1%) and increases in prices of major food items (56.0%) in the past 15 days due to the pandemic. In addition, 30% of children reported that they felt hungry within the past four weeks due to lack of food. As shown in Table 4, controlling for previous test scores, cumulative economic hardship did not strongly predict engagement in remote learning, with a marginally statistically significant negative association with child-reported engagement (b = 0.048, SE = 0.027, p < .10), and no significant association with caregiver-reported engagement. Cumulative economic hardship was associated with lower literacy test scores (b = 0.062, SE = 0.023, p < .01) and math test scores (b = 0.052, SE = 0.023, p < .05). 4. Controlling for previous test scores, were there gaps in children's engagement in remote learning, literacy, and math test scores across public and private school students, between boys and girls, by household SES, and food security/insecurity? Small gaps in participation were observed for all groups. Specifically, food insecure children reported lower engagement than food secure children (b = 0.16, SE = 0.06, p = .009; b = 0.09, SE = 0.06, p = .159, for child- and caregiver-reports, respectively); girls reported great engagement than boys (b = 0.15, SE = 0.05, p = .002; b = 0.21, SE = 0.05, p < .001, for child- and caregiver-report, respectively); children enrolled in public schools prior to school closures reported less engagement than those enrolled in private school (b = 0.26, SE = 0.06, p < .001; b = 0.28, SE = 0.06, p < .001, for child- and caregiver-reports, respectively); and children living in low-SES households reported less engagement than those living in high-SES households (b = 0.28, SE = 0.07, p < .001; b = 0.17, SE = 0.06, p = .005, for child- and caregiver-report, respectively). For math scores, statistically significant differences were found between high-SES children. These perform 0.31 SD higher than their low-SES peers (SE = 0.05, p < .001). Similarly, children in public schools performing 0.27 SD lower than their private-school peers (SE = 0.06, p < .001), while food-insecure children score 0.21 SD worse than their food-secure counterparts (SE = 0.05, p < .001). No differences were found by child sex. Similar patterns emerged for literacy scores. Statistically significant group differences were found with high-SES children performing 0.40 SD higher than their low-SES peers (SE = 0.05, p < .001), children in public schools performing 0.33 SD lower than their private-school peers (SE = 0.06, p < .001), and food-insecure children scoring 0.21 SD worse than their food-secure counterparts (SE 0.05, p < .001). Unlike math, there was variation by child sex with girls scoring 0.10 SD higher than boys (SE = 0.05, p = .026). This study provided an in-depth examination of children's learning experiences during school closures in Ghana. It is one of few studies that documented in such depth and from multiple perspectives-including children, caregivers, and teachers-engagement in remote learning opportunities, inequities in access, and inequities in learning outcomes. But two critical limitations are worth considering when interpreting our results. First, our sample focused on a select group of children in the Greater Accra Region who were enrolled in pre-primary school in the 2015-16 school year and were part of a previous study. Mobility and school dropout are common challenges to the school system in Ghana and many other LMICs, with disadvantaged children experiencing both at higher rates (Kamanda & Sankoh, 2015). This sample is not representative of all of Ghana, and likely represents a more advantaged sub-sample within the broader study given that children were able to be tracked and surveyed. Second, our learning assessments were brief and administered to children over the phone and do not represent the whole of children's literacy and math skills. They provide a very cursory estimate of children's skills. Phone-based learning assessments are new and best practices are still being developed (Angrist et al., 2020). In our sample, 14% of children reported that someone in the household helped them during the phone-based assessment; assessors reported hearing more than 25% receiving help during the assessment. Thus, interpreting the findings related to learning outcomes should consider these key challenges. Recent efforts to harmonize global data on learning and human capital development show that countries in SSA have the lowest learning levels globally (Angrist et al., 2021). The COVID-19 pandemic led to school closures all over the world, leaving children across diverse contexts without formal education for many months, and schools have been grappling with the aftermath of this for over two years. Against an already low learning base and existing inequalities in children's access to quality education, these new challenges brought on by the 2020 school closures pose a significant challenge to governments and schools moving forward to ensuring all students learn. Additional research-including retrospective research and documenting the struggles and successes of schools in the years after schools re-opened-is needed to ensure all children's learning needs are me |
| Exploitation Route | We organised a webinar with Ministry of Education and GES directors and officers to enhance uptake and use of study findings. We will do another webinar (open) on March 11. We are currently producing a memo for distributing on the project website and to key stakeholders. |
| Sectors | Agriculture Food and Drink Education Healthcare |
| URL | https://www.poverty-action.org/publication/impact-covid-19-children%E2%80%99s-learning-and-development-ghana |
| Description | The study was shared with a cross section of stakeholders via a webinar. Participants included- Ministry of Education staff (policy makers and implementers) and civil society, as well as development partners. The research team and research partner IPA also presented the research (in-person/virtual) to participants at the National Education Week 2021 and 2022, the annual review and planning conference of the Ministry of Education, with policy makers, implementers, development partners, and civil society in attendance. The Ministry also pulled together research during the COVID-era to complement the research the research team shared - focusing on learning gaps and return to school. Overall, our study formed part of the Ministry's drive to optimize post COVID return to school rates and support learners to bridge learning gap among vulnerable groups of children. We shared the following messages based on our studies: Schools re-opened in Ghana in January 2021 after ten months of being closed. Our findings suggest that some additional strategies may help to address inequalities that likely grew during the pandemic and may grow if schools close again in the future. These lessons are likely relevant for other countries, given widespread documentation of inequalities in access to learning opportunities during school closures within several LMICs (UNICEF, 2020). First, it is key to meet students at their learning levels in the classroom. Even before school closures, differing learning levels within the same class groupings posed challenges for teachers and students, and our findings suggested that school closures may have exacerbated this problem given children's varying levels of access to educational support. Targeted instruction-or differentiated learning-includes grouping children according to learning level and teaching to that level. This technique can be particularly effective in contexts where class sizes are large and many students repeat grades, meaning that students in any one class have an extraordinarily wide range of skill levels and abilities (Banerjee et al., 2016). Second, engaging parents to improve the quality of the home-learning environment is widely recognized as a key factor supporting young children's early literacy and math skills, and this may be even more the case while older children were not in school. There are few studies in the African context, but the limited evidence suggests that a similar approach can enhance parental engagement in children's education in both Cote d'Ivoire (Lichand & Wolf, 2021) and Ghana (Aurino and Wolf, 2024), if well targeted. Third, while our sample is relatively more advantaged compared with the rest of Ghana, we still found high rates of hunger reported by study children. This is consistent with a recent study documenting widespread food insecurity in poor households in several LMICs, including Ghana (Egger et al., 2021). Household food security, defined as stable access to sufficient and nutritious food, is critical to meet children's developmental and learning needs (Aurino, Fledderjohann & Vellakkal, 2018; Fram, Bernal & Frongillo, 2015; Frongillo et al., 2022). Even intermittent food insecurity and malnutrition during early childhood can have detrimental long-term and intergenerational effects on health, education, and income (Authors; Behrman et al., 2009), leading to considerable losses for both individuals and societies (Subramanian, Mejía-Guevara & Krishna, 2016). Similar results were found among primary school-aged children in Ghana (Aurino et al., 2020). One key factor behind this rise in child hunger among low-SES and public-school children may be the discontinuation of the Ghana School Feeding Program, as the vast majority of public (but not private) school children reported receiving free school meals before the pandemic. Research from Ghana and elsewhere shows school meals are scalable and effective and improve nutrition and learning, especially for the poorest children and girls (Aurino et al., 2020), suggesting that school-feeding programs are key safety nets. It is critical to consider strategies that support children's food security if schools close again and to ensure children have access to school meals as they return to school to support their learning. Take-home food rations to distribute at school or cash transfers focused on families with children could help mitigate adverse impacts if schools close again, though such rations and transfers are at risk to be shared with other family members (Islam & Hoddinot, 2009). Finally, investments in quality early childhood education can protect children remote learning engagement during school closures due to emergencies. As of 7 February 2024, the three papers that have been generated through this study have been cited the following times: Wolf et al (2021) "Learning in the Time of a Pandemic and Implications for Returning to School: Effects of COVID-19 in Ghana" : 24 times ( published in 2021) "Remote learning engagement and learning outcomes during school closures in Ghana": 12 times (published in 2022) "Medium-term protective effects of quality early childhood education during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ghana": 2 times (published in 2022) |
| First Year Of Impact | 2021 |
| Sector | Education |
| Impact Types | Societal Policy & public services |
| Description | ERC Starting Grant - Aurino |
| Amount | € 1,638,000 (EUR) |
| Organisation | European Research Council (ERC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | Belgium |
| Start | 01/2023 |
| End | 12/2028 |
| Title | New instruments to measure child learning by phone |
| Description | We adapted, piloted, and administered at scale new scales for conducting learning assessments by phone. This is a new and active area of research, and we are currently validating these measures by examining their reliability compared to in-person data collection. We are also active part of an international group of researchers that is examining this question in a variety of these settings. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Assessing the quality of learning assessments by phone is an important area of research, as these tools could be used for routine learning assessments at scale, given their lower costs compared with in-person assessments. |
| Description | Conference presentation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Presentation at CIES conference |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://cies2021.org/wp-content/uploads/PROGRAM.pdf |
| Description | Policy brief on remote learning |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | The COVID 19 pandemic and the associated social and economic downturn are undermining children's educational and developmental outcomes, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. Leveraging an on-going longitudinal study, researchers in Ghana conducted phone surveys and other research activities to measure the pandemic's repercussions on children's education and broader developmental outcomes. On average, private school students and students with high socioeconomic status had higher test scores at the end of the school closure period compared with their public- school counterparts, even when controlling of their previous scores. Additionally, 72 percent of public school children missed daily lunches that are received by the Ghana School Feeding Program and 30 percent of surveyed children claimed they experienced hunger during school closures. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.poverty-action.org/publication/impact-covid-19-children%E2%80%99s-learning-and-developme... |
| Description | Policy brief on teachers experiences during the pandemic |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | The COVID-19 pandemic forced educators and students worldwide to rapidly shift to distance learning. As a result, governments, school systems, and educators worked to provide continuity in learning and services accessed through schools-such as school feeding programs-while trying to reconcile persistent equity gaps in access to technology and material and social resources. To date, global educational research has largely focused on how existing disparities and the social and economic downturn resulting from COVID-19 have undermined children's learning. Much less data exist on how teachers fared during distance learning and the return to in-person schooling. This brief leverages an ongoing longitudinal study on children, parents, and teachers in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana. Researchers conducted two rounds of phone surveys with 514 primary-school teachers from public and private schools to measure the pandemic's repercussions on both children's education and teacher well-being. Data were collected during school closures (October 2020) and when schools reopened (mid-January 2021) after ten months of distance learning. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.poverty-action.org/publication/experience-educators-during-covid-19-pandemic-surveys-dur... |
| Description | Presentation at Ghana National Education Week: Evidence Summit 2021 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Presentation of study findings by Dr Esinam Avornyo at Ghana National Education Week: Evidence Summit 2021: Remodelling Education for Sustainable Teaching and Learning. The Evidence Summit, which forms part of the National Education Week (NEW), was held on September 29, 2021. The event brought together policymakers, researchers, and practitioners to a) share rigorous evidence that has been collected about innovative approaches to improving access to STEM education and use of digital technology in learning, in Ghana and internationally; and b) identify ways to build resilience in the education system for quality education delivery. The Ministry of Education holds the National Education Week (NEW) annually to engage stakeholders in the review of sector performance and collectively strategize towards the attainment of sector targets in the ensuing year. The theme for NEW 2021 focused on "Reimagining Education for National Transformation." The Evidence Day of NEW provided a platform to discuss best practices and to draw out lessons for policy and education planning. Papers were presented, linked to this year's NEW theme, across the sub-sectors of education from early grade to tertiary level. This assisted policymakers and sector practitioners with evidence to inform reform, planning, and policy implementation for improved service delivery. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.poverty-action.org/event/ghana-national-education-week-evidence-summit-2021 |
| Description | Presentation at Society for Research on Child Development |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Presentation of findings at Society for Research on child development, one of the most important conferences in the field. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.srcd.org/event/srcd-2021-biennial-meeting/schedule-glance |
| Description | Presentation on remote learning and learning losses at National Reading Day in Ghana |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Presentation of study findings and learning inequalities at National Reading day organised in partnership with the Ministry of Education. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Webinar |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | COVID-19 and its associated school closures present significant challenges for Ghana's education system. Ghanaian children were out of school from March 2020 until January 2021, losing out on the hours of learning that the structured school setting presents along with other benefits such as the school feeding program. Under the present conditions, research and data offer guidance to inform the reopening of schools. On March 11, 2021, Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) hosted this webinar presented emerging data on the effects of COVID-19 on education in Ghana. 482 registered attendees from across the globe. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.poverty-action.org/event/learning-time-pandemic-effects-covid-19-students%E2%80%99-learn... |
| Description | Webinar with Ministry of Education/Ghana Education Services to present results from first round of survey |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | We organised a webinar to present the findings from the first round of phone surveys to children, parents and teachers to Ministry of Education and Ghana Education Services general and district directors, and other key employees. We restricted specifically to this audience because we wanted to provoke in-depth discussions and debate that could enhance the uptake of the data generated through our project for informing policies for children's learning in this return-to-school phase |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |