The COVID-19 pandemic caused a significant impact on the health and education of millions of children and their families, a study has found. Dubbed Inequalities and Impacts of COVID-19 on Early Childhood Care, the survey was released Wednesday (Sep 21) and shows a drop in daycare and preschool enrollments from 2020 to 2021, a decline in vaccination, and effects on the diet of children up to six years old—the period comprising early childhood.
The research was conducted by the Maria Cecilia Souto Vidigal Foundation in partnership with Itaú Social and Unicef and was based on data from the Ministries of Health, Education, official statistics agency IBGE. The initiative was also supported by associations of city managers for education and social work Undime and Congemas.
The researchers applied questionnaires on health, education, and socio-economic aspects, and interviewed decision makers and agents working in these fields in over 100 municipalities in several states.
The numbers indicate that the pandemic raised the proportion of very underweight children by 54.5 percent between March 2020 and November 2021. In the same period, the percentage of children aged up to five who were underweight or very underweight stood at 4.3 percent.
On health care, the document states that the application of the ten specific early-childhood vaccines closed out the year 2021 with coverage below that of 2019.
In education, figures revealed that gross enrollment rates fell between 2019 and 2021 in both daycare and pre-school institutions. In Brazil, education is compulsory from age four, and the country was supposed to have provided full access to this age group by 2016 under its National Education Plan.
“We are facing the risk of a retreat in the coverage of early childhood education. This is a real issue, previously warned by specialists and confirmed in these statistics,” said Tiago Lisboa Bartholo, an invited researcher from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.
Another study in which he participated, with a focus on schools in Rio de Janeiro, detected a plunge in children’s learning levels during the pandemic, following the closing of schools and the introduction of remote classes. Students learned an average of 65 percent of what they usually learned in face-to-face classes. The reduction in enrollment took place mainly in private schools, he pointed out. This may have occurred due to parents and guardians’ loss of income, or even due to the shutdown of schools as a result of the lower number of students.
The 2022 results should cast light on whether there has been a recovery in enrollments in both private and the public institutions. According to Marina Fragata, director at the foundation, one of the goals of the study is to draw attention to the impacts of the pandemic in this age group and provide information and data to support public policies.
