Expanding preschool access in active conflict contexts: Piloting a hybrid and a fully remote learning model for 4-6 year-olds in Haiti

• In Event: Innovation Under Constraint: Technology, Access, and New Delivery Models

Proposal

Children are increasingly experiencing record harm as a result of violent conflict and crisis (Human Rights Watch, 2025). This harm takes many forms, including an unprecedented number of children amputees; severe, chronic starvation; recruitment into perpetuating violence; the bombing of schools and medical facilities; and increased direct targeting and killing of children (Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, 2024). While ending the violence is the most critical prerogative, there is also a need to continue to provide all possible opportunities and care to children living in active conflict settings. This includes continued access to education: a need that is particularly challenging when schools have been destroyed and/or getting from home to school involves too high of a risk for families.

This paper is a pilot study of two models for providing early childhood education (ECE) for children age 4-6 in active conflict settings. Working with an experienced, community-based local health organization in Haiti - one of five countries with the highest number of abuses against children per the United Nations (Becker, 2025) - we examine the viability of, challenges and successes in implementing, and needed future adaptations to both a hybrid and a fully remote preschool program. The hybrid model is being implemented with families attending our implementing partner’s in-person school in Port-au-Prince. When able, children come to school and receive in-person education. When not able due to safety concerns, teachers and caregivers shift to remotely maintaining children’s learning and development through in-home activities and e-learning materials. The fully remote model will serve families living in internally displaced camps with no access to in-person schooling. Teachers will work directly with key family members to teach them how to support/maintain their children’s learning via in-home activities. This second model has been found to be effective for Syrian refugee families in Lebanon (Schwartz et al., 2025), but has not been studied in an active-conflict setting like Haiti.

In this pilot, three teachers (supported by three back-up teachers) will each run one hybrid class of 20-25 students and three remote-only classes each with 5-6 students and their caregivers. For the remote-only classes, teachers will hold three weekly 35-40 minute audio-only calls (video can be difficult given telecommunications infrastructure) with the caregivers. In these calls, and through text messages/additional e-learning links, they will support caregivers in implementing key learning activities with their children at home or in camps. Both models will be piloted for a full 12-week schooling term in Haiti starting in Fall 2025.

Our research will focus on two main lines of inquiry: feasibility and reliability.

The first line of inquiry, feasibility, is critical to improving programming to better reach and serve families in Haiti, with possible implications for other active-conflict settings. It will focus on what worked best, what was most challenging, what did not work, and what further supports teachers and caregivers identify as needing in relation to both the hybrid and remote-only ECE programming. Data collection for this line of inquiry will center on semi-structured interviews with teachers (all six) and caregivers (15 from the hybrid programming and 15 from the remote-only) conducted at both the beginning and end of the program. We will also examine attendance/participation rates and the amount of time teachers and caregivers report spending on activities for each program model. Qualitative data will be transcribed and translated and analyzed in both Creole and English by a team that will include 1-2 native Creole speakers.

The second line of inquiry will enable us to better design any future impact evaluations of this approach to preschool within Haiti through piloting the measurement of relevant caregiver (e.g. well-being, parenting stress) and child (e.g., motor skill, social emotional, literacy, numeracy) outcomes. We will invite all 105-129 participating family members (60-75 in hybrid model; 45-54 in remote-only model) to complete caregiver surveys that include general demographic information; self-report on their well-being, health, and parenting; and their report of their child’s development (using the ECDI 2030: Halpin et al., 2024). We will also invite all participating children to complete direct child assessments using the IDELA (Pisani et al., 2018). For hybrid families these can take place at the school. For remote-only families, an adapted version of the IDELA will be piloted over video call to assess the feasibility of this approach in Haiti when no in-person data collection is possible. Finally, we will conduct a focus group with our data collectors to understand their experiences during data collection and how they might inform our use of these tools. This focus group will discuss all data collection but with a focus on the remote IDELA, if video calls worked in this context, and the behaviors of participating children/family members (e.g., do family members try to step in and help when children do not know the answer?). Analyses of this data will focus on the reliability and validity of these approaches to measuring key constructs of interest in these communities and what data collection protocols or specific items may need altered in future studies.

Findings from this study will inform on-the-ground programmatic changes to these educational models in advance of ambitions to scale up the reach of hybrid and remote early childhood programming in Haiti; lay the groundwork for a future impact evaluation of such models in Haiti; and add to a global conversation on innovative ways we can better reach families when in-person schooling is not yet an option due to infrastructure, distance, or active conflict/safety concerns.

Authors

• Kate Schwartz, Global TIES for Children, New York University

• Florencia Lopez Boo, NYU Global TIES for Children

• Carolina Rivas Herrera, NYU Global TIES for Children

• Marie Marcelle Deschamps, Centres GHESKIO

• Joaquin Paseyro Mayol