Early Childhood Education and Care in a Global Pandemic

How the Sector Responded, Spoke Back and Generated Knowledge

Linda Henderson, Katherine Bussey, Hasina Banu Ebrahim, Linda Henderson, Katherine Bussey, Hasina Banu Ebrahim

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000594508
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Early Childhood Education

Early Childhood Education and Care in a Global Pandemic is a book that highlights how the international early childhood education and care sector responded to the global COVID-19 pandemic. It shows the resiliency of the sector around the world as it grappled with a rapidly changing environment of uncertainty and complexity.

Drawing on a diverse range of early childhood education and care contexts, the book captures real-life examples of how COVID-19 impacted children, educators and teachers, and families. Chapters present cases of the particular challenges that COVID-19 presented in a wide range of countries and then how they responded to these challenges – challenges that tested the resilience of children, educators and teachers, and families. By forward anchoring, each chapter examines the opportunities that arose from these challenges and how new local knowledge was produced as new ways were found to support children, educators and teachers, and families during this time.

This book offers early childhood education and care a timely resource on lessons learnt from a once-in-a-lifetime event. It offers the sector a way forward to commit to developing new ways of thinking and working that stem from the lessons learnt during the COVID-19 pandemic.

1

Preschool children’s ideas about the COVID-19 pandemic

Ingrid Engdahl and Ingrid Pramling Samuelsson

DOI: 10.4324/9781003257684-1

Introduction

Listening to children’s voices ought to have become mainstream in education, taking into consideration that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (hereafter UNCRC, UN, 1989) has been around now for more than 30 years and has become more and more incorporated into the laws and policy documents in many countries. However, this is not always the case in practice and research (Višnjić-Jevtić et al., 2021) although it has been common practice in Sweden since the 1980s (Doverborg & Pramling Samuelsson, 1985/2012). Human rights, and especially the rights for children stated in the UNCRC, position children as citizens. The UNCRC is also strongly related to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (SDG) (UNESCO, 2021), and specifically, the SDG4.7: Education which states:

By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys have access to quality early childhood development, care and education so that they are prepared for primary education.

For the first time, the UN General Assembly decided that pre-primary school for children should be available for every child in the world. Additionally, SDG4.7 states that all learners should acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, a sustainable lifestyle, global citizenship, and appreciation of cultural diversity. Global citizenship is therefore something that is not just for adults but for young children.

For a child to become a recognized global citizen, who is located locally but with a global awareness, children’s agency needs to be taken into consideration. This needs to start in early childhood education. The COVID-19 pandemic has placed this issue in the spotlight. It must be met and understood as an important aspect of the SDG and specifically SDG4 Education. That is why questions around COVID-19 lead directly towards the concept of sustainability. In this chapter, we will put forward the experiences and ideas of young children about the ongoing pandemic by listening to their different voices. We will describe the different ways in which these children’s understandings are related to agency and responsibility, and therefore, sustainability.

The Swedish context

In contrast to all other countries, except Taiwan, preschools in Sweden have been open during the pandemic. In Sweden, the Public Health Agency of Sweden (PHAS) makes recommendations of actions to the government. To some degree, PHAS has the power to ban certain things, e.g., not more than eight people gathering, no visits to homes for the elderly, and closing secondary schools and universities. Sweden’s approach to combat COVID-19 aims to slow down the spread of the virus, not to overwhelm the healthcare system, and to protect the most vulnerable groups in our society. The general policy from PHAS (2020a) in Sweden included:

• Whenever possible, work from home.
• Maintain physical distance from other people (1.5–2 metres).
• Stay at home if you are ill or feel unwell with cold symptoms, cough, or fever stating, “You should stay at home for at least seven days after falling ill including two days with no fever”.
• You should get tested if your symptoms do not pass within 24 hours.
• Maintain good hand hygiene. Wash your hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. If handwashing facilities are not available, alcohol-based hand rub is an alternative.
• Avoid touching your face (eyes, nose, mouth).
• Cough and sneeze into your elbow.
• Avoid social gatherings, maximum allowed 50 people, from December eight people.
• Maintain physical distance from other people at sports grounds.

The decision for preschools in Sweden to remain open was founded in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UN, 1989), which is national law in Sweden, especially on children’s rights and on the principle of the best interests of the child. Policy for children in preschool should follow the general bans and guidelines (PHAS, 2020b). However, there was a lack of a “preschool perspective” in the guidelines, which caused problems for children, staff, and families. In some of the COVID-19 measures the Ombudsman for Children noted that the incorporation of the UNCRC has had some effect:

The decision by the government to keep pre-schools and primary schools open was based on a child rights perspective, where the right of the child to education and protection as well as the best interest of the child has been in focus. The government has for example expressed that the pre-schools and schools are very important in particular for children in vulnerable situations, since this can be their safe haven as well as offer reliable adult contact outside of their home.

(Ombudsman for Children, 2020, p. 3)

Swedish preschool education is a fundamental right and is regarded as being important for young children’s development and well-being. Therefore, at this time it was critical to find a balance between children’s needs for preschool and the infection control measures taken (Engdahl, 2020). With preschool education proving not to be a driving force in the spread of infection, and preschool staff not being diagnosed with COVID-19 to a greater extent than other occupational groups, this decision was justified (PHAS, 2020b). However, children’s right to preschool education and the need to keep preschools open based on this rationale weighed heavily on many (Van Laere et al., 2021).

At the same time knowledge of the negative consequences of school closures was expanding. For example, loss of learning, higher levels of psychological distress, and poorer physical health of children (PHAS, 2020b). Importantly, these negative consequences were greater with vulnerable children such as children with underlying illnesses, those in lower socioeconomic groups, and those living in social adversity and poverty (PHAS, 2020b). Then in September 2020, the PHAS altered its general guidelines for preschool children stating that they must stay home if unwell. Before this, there had been little discussion about unwell children or staff staying home and not returning until providing a negative test for COVID-19. So, this new directive led to conflicts between parents and staff in determining if a child was unwell or not. In October 2020, the PHAS even ruled that COVID-19-positive parents may leave their children in preschool. This conflict ended in December 2020, when the PHAS changed their recommendations, saying that children with ill siblings or family members should stay at home (Engdahl, 2020).

Although preschools stayed open during these times of changing guidelines from the PHAS there was a decrease in the attendance of children. During the spring of 2020, in many of the preschools in Gothenburg, only 40% of children were present (Engdahl, 2020). Parents with a migrant background often kept their children at home. The lowest attendance rates were during March–April 2021 (26%) and were in areas with low socioeconomic status. A preschool head in Gothenburg shared her concern:

We have received signals from the Social Services that guardians are mentally ill due to the pandemic and that this affects the children. In families where there is violence, mental illness, financial difficulties or abuse, the vulnerability increases when the whole society is worried. Then we at preschool are extra important for these families and especially for the children.

(Engdahl, 2020, p. 20)

To manage preschools during this time much of the teaching and education were conducted outdoors on the premises of the preschool as well as in nearby nature and forests (NAFE, 2021). All excursions to cultural or leisure sites, including theatre, libraries, and swimming halls, were cancelled, and all trips that required public transport were cancelled. In some preschools, the children played “freely” for large parts of the day and in other preschools learning was conducted with an equivalent high-quality education, as previously. This is in keeping with high-quality education in Sweden where the quality of the education depends on the educators’ competence and ability to adapt, to rethink, and to restructure the day according to conditions.

Parents were not welcome to enter preschool premises. In most preschools, parents were only allowed to leave and pick-up children outdoors (NAFE, 2021). If the education was scheduled indoors the children were met by staff at the door. Collaboration with guardians during this period changed in its form but not in content. The move to only digital meetings was successful. Introduction, follow-up talks, development talks, closing talks, parent meetings, and parent council meetings were all conducted as per normal but just via digital platforms (Engdahl, 2020).

The introduction of new children and guardians to preschools mainly took place outdoors. Sometimes, new children were invited indoors with their parent (NAFE, 2021). Guardians’ participation in the daily programme and in routines such as food and rest was cancelled due to the difficulty of keeping distance. Transition routines to preschool class and primary school were changed or cancelled due to COVID-19 restrictions.

Whilst all this was going on preschool, staff expressed that they felt they were not being heard in regard to the necessary adaptations they had to make following the Swedish general guidelines and recommendations (Van Leare et al., 2021), for example...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsements
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• List of contributors
• Foreword
• 1. Preschool children’s ideas about the COVID-19 pandemic
• 2. Dora’s doll got sick: Preschool children’s wellbeing and play during the COVID-19 crisis
• 3. Back to day one: The impact of COVID-19 lockdowns on the return to kindergarten in Australia
• 4. Children’s transition between home and ECEC services: Innovative practices during the COVID-19 pandemic
• 5. Children’s participation in education during COVID-19
• 6. COVID-19 pandemic and centre-based services for children under three: Evidence and insights from the Portuguese context
• 7. Predictors for caregiver involvement in childcare, education, and early learning in Kenyan urban informal settlements during COVID-19
• 8. Drop-off at the gate: Challenges to parent–staff collaboration in Danish childcare in the era of COVID-19
• 9. Education and care: Expanding traditional pedagogies with(in) a pandemic
• 10. What does it mean to educate and care for children in Brazil in times of COVID-19?
• 11. Struggles at the frontline in pandemic times: Time to reimagine early childhood care and education in South Africa
• 12. Distance learning in Cameroon: Case study of private nursery school teachers’ experiences and challenges amidst the COVID-19 lockdown
• 13. Politics and practices of the new normal: What are preschool teachers’ experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey?
• 14. The role of the Australian Education Union Victoria in supporting early childhood educators during a global pandemic: Tensions, challenges and opportunities for the profession
• 15. A ‘quint-essential(ised)’ ECE workforce: COVID-19 and the exploitation of labour
• Afterword
• Index