Crisis to opportunity for children
Boosting early childhood education and parental involvement in times of COVID-19
Highlights
Today, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, child development and education is undergoing an even more acute crisis as schools are closed, affecting 1.6 billion children worldwide. This compares to 353,454 children in Kosovo, with around 180,000 young children left with limited or no access to services or early education. Deprivation from learning opportunities at nurseries, kindergartens and schools requires that parents utilize alternative means such as digital books, direct engagement and technological tools to support learning at home. Yet, more than half of children under the age of 5 in Kosovo have no children’s books at home, and only 42 per cent of mothers and 6 per cent of fathers engage in any learning activities with children at home. Further, 5 per cent of private kindergartens are licensed, and overall funding dedicated to early childhood education and development is limited to 0.3 per cent of Kosovo’s GDP for preschool and pre-primary levels. Only 14 percent of children aged 3-5 years attend an early childhood education programme, leaving a large portion of children of this age deprived of early learning programmes.
For more, read our latest report “Kosovo Case: Crisis to opportunity for children - boosting early childhood education and parental involvement in times of COVID-19”.
