아프리카ㆍ중동

Building on our Early Learning Partnership (ELP) Phase 1 research (Rossiter et al., 2018, Kim et al., 2021), Phase 2 primarily aims to identify the effects of pre-primary school participation and quality on children’s school readiness at the time of entry into primary school in Ethiopia. To achieve this goal, we tracked the educational trajectory of a sample of pre-primary-school-aged children at the beginning of the school year in Nov/Dec 2019-20, following them up just after schools re-opened around Dec/Jan 2020/21, when they will be of Grade 1 age. During this time, the education system in Ethiopia (as globally) faced unprecedented challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in schools being closed for 8 months from March to November 2020. Subsequently, our original research design was adapted to take account of the changes that came about because of COVID-19 to provide important insights into the effects of COVID-19 on Ethiopia’s pre-primary education sector. This study focuses on O-Class, a reception class for 6-year-olds (the year before primary school) attached to the government primary school, given it is the main driver for expanding pre-primary education access in Ethiopia since the country’s 2010 early childhood education reform. The report consists of two parts. Part 1 addresses the education trajectories of pre-primary school-aged children in Ethiopia in the context of COVID-19. Part 2 investigates the perspectives of key stakeholders and caregivers, in particular with respect to the implications of COVID-19 crises on pre-primary education. We collected quantitative data through direct learning assessment of children, household surveys (face-to-face interviews before the pandemic; mobile phone survey during the pandemic), and qualitative interviews with key stakeholders.