The Implementation of Early Childhood Education in the Time of Covid-19 Pandemic: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Purpose of the study: The study examined the implementation of early childhood education during the pandemic of COVID-19.
 Methodology: A systematic review identified the implementation in early childhood education settings. Electronic databases such as PubMed, MEDLINE, Web of Science, Scopus, and manual search on Google Scholar were explored with specific keywords from the inception of the pandemic COVID-19 to November 30, 2020.
 Main Findings: Early childhood education has been influenced due to school closure. Most of the children experience online learning, to reduce the spread of the outbreak, especially when face-to-face learning cannot be conducted. Parents and teachers have significant roles in supporting the children to improve their cognitive and social development. However, the implementation of home learning causes some difficulties in relation to the self-regulation of very young children, the readiness to utilize digital technology and learning materials, parent’s beliefs and attitudes on online learning compared with traditional learning, and requirements of demanding time and knowledge to accompany the children. Therefore, it is important to have good communication between parents and teachers to support early childhood online learning during the outbreak.
 Applications of this study: This article will provide evidence from some countries about the matter of early childhood education during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study will be useful for improving the quality of early childhood education.
 Novelty/Originality of this study: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the early childhood education has changed from the traditional system to online education system to reduce the spread of the diseases. This article will show the various implementations of learning system during the outbreak and the lesson learned.

Early Childhood and Lockdown: The Challenge of Building a Virtual Mutual Support Network between Children, Families and School for Sustainable Education and Increasing Their Well-Being

“…Containment measures in response to the COVID-19 crisis disrupted conventional education with the nationwide closure of schools. In response, the early childhood education sector gave priority to the personal and family well-being of pupils and the accompaniment of families [48], attempted to adjust the meaning of education, characterized by experimentation, attachment, and physical contact, to the new reality [29,34] by starting important initiatives to maintain continuity of learning during this period based on proposals, suggestions, and recommendations for non-assessable weekly voluntary activities. [48].…”

“…[48]. However, early childhood education students have had difficulties in following the activities proposed by schools [48], either because of their limited digital skills, due to their young age, or because of the digital divide [16,27], generating processes of demotivation, loss of routines and schedules [17,29,49], and possible school drop-out [50]. This situation also leads to a reduction in their capacity for autonomy and self-regulation in children's learning [24,26,29,51], and the intensification of pupils' dependence on family resources, both material (electronic devices) and immaterial, relating to the cultural and educational capital of families and their willingness to dedicate time to accompany and guide them in distance education via the internet.…”

“…However, early childhood education students have had difficulties in following the activities proposed by schools [48], either because of their limited digital skills, due to their young age, or because of the digital divide [16,27], generating processes of demotivation, loss of routines and schedules [17,29,49], and possible school drop-out [50]. This situation also leads to a reduction in their capacity for autonomy and self-regulation in children's learning [24,26,29,51], and the intensification of pupils' dependence on family resources, both material (electronic devices) and immaterial, relating to the cultural and educational capital of families and their willingness to dedicate time to accompany and guide them in distance education via the internet. On the other hand, teachers show a significant feeling of being "overwhelmed", due to the intensification of communication with families [50], the increase in workload [52], or the constant changes in measures adopted by the administration [50], in addition to the fact that they have to deal with a growing number of problems [51], including the lack of training for teachers to adapt to new pedagogical concepts and ways of teaching [27,29].…”

“…Among the potentialities of this virtualization, the multiple opportunities offered by virtual platforms to maintain contact between peers [21] stand out, which helps to maintain or increase subjective well-being among students in the face of isolation at home, as well as to allow for further development of school tasks. On the other hand, a number of limitations have been pointed out: at first, an important digital divide between students was revealed, which in most cases was attempted to be solved by providing computer equipment and internet connectivity [22,23], however, it became evident that the availability of technical means did not ensure distance education [17,24], and families, apart from teleworking [25] and managing their children at home, became key players in the implementation of virtualization of education, either by supporting, guiding, or accompanying their children throughout the process [3,18,[25][26][27][28][29]. The fundamental importance of family involvement in their children's education highlights and increases educational inequalities among students [3,16,17,26,[30][31][32], including parents' lack of technical expertise [16,26,30,32], lack of training to understand the activities [17,24,26,27,31], or time spent with their children [18,25,[32][33][34], and in the case of Spain, between 10 and 14% of students did not connect to e-learning [31].…”

“…In only 60% of countries was distance education developed for the early childhood education stage [17], although 69% of students were unable to participate for various reasons [17], and in the case of the USA, nearly 40% of children did not participate regularly in virtualized education [35]. At this educational stage, and given the difficulty of virtualization of education due to the fact that contact, experimentation, and interaction between peers is fundamental [25,32,34], the family again becomes indispensable in order to develop the educational process [17,24,25,29,32,34], either by helping children to concentrate [25,29,33] or by accompanying them in activities [24,29,34], which again translates into an increase in educational inequalities [36]. Likewise, the virtualization of teaching in young children has led to a burnout caused by the excessive use of virtual synchronous forms of communication [37], known as Zoom fatigue [38].…”