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Adolescents’ Learning During COVID-19: Lessons Learnt in the Utilization of Technology during Emergencies

Sun, March 23, 9:45 to 11:00am, Palmer House, Clark 7

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

Educational technologies include low-tech (e.g., visual charts) and high-tech (e.g., artificial intelligence, machine learning). Also found within the range are various application software, educational games, social media platforms, and other digital devices. The increase in the use of education technology has led to a wider reach of education programs including those reforms in the curriculum that emphasized the 21st-century skills (Kiru & Abuya, 2023). Before the COVID-19 pandemic, information communication technologies (ICT) had been a part of the daily lives of populations by continuing to influence interactions in commerce, work, communication, and learning. Within the education system, learning and digital technologies have flourished in the respective classrooms as countries continue to invest in using different technologies to teach children in the classrooms (Trucano, 2017). For instance, the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic around the world resulted in school closures in 194 countries by April 2020, where an estimated 1.6 billion children, accounting for 91% of the student population, were affected (UNESCO, 2020). This necessitated governments to adopt a wide range of strategies to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 and ensure learning continuity by using various forms of online technologies (MOE, 2020). Moreover, investing in the use of technology for teaching and learning is seen as a catalyst that triggers innovation, prepares learners for the global stage (Antonova, Myronchuk, Pavlenko, Kovalchuk, & Korniichuk, 2024), and can be seen as an equalizer to a certain extent, assuming that the range of technologies available for learning is without limitations (Peruzzo & Allan, 2024).
In Kenya the education ministry developed a three-pronged approach to support the continuation of learning remotely which consisted of 1) online learning and strengthening the Kenya Education Cloud, 2) provision of radio and television programs at the primary and secondary school levels, and (3) supporting access to textbooks and other teaching and learning materials in remote areas (MOE, 2020).Whereas the common mode of instruction in schools in Kenya has largely been through face-to-face interaction (Mackatiani, Likoko, & Mackatiani, 2022). Past and current emergencies have posed a challenge to the conventional model of schooling, where the teacher and the learner are in a conventional classroom (UNESCO, 2020). Approximately 15M learners in primary and secondary schools were affected by school closures in Kenya MOE, 2020). Moreover, education disruptions such as those caused by the COVID-19 pandemic were highly likely to be more detrimental to vulnerable populations such as poor households and girls. For instance, there has been unequal access to learning facilities within the County. According to the Kenya Population and Housing Census of 2019, ownership of mobile phones, radio, and TV sets stood at 47.3%, 56.9%, and 40.7% respectively and the proportion of individuals older than 3 years using the internet was 22.6% (KNBS, 2020). Despite this, the use of the radio remains to be above 56 percent showing that learning or the delivery of an intervention through the radio would reach over half of the households in Kenya.
COVID-19 disrupted the education and well-being of students and parents alike. For instance, parents could not support learning at home due to their engagement in competing activities, like looking for jobs outside the home and low literacy levels (Yorke et al., 2021). In addition, parents were challenged by the difficulties and uncertainties of working from home or worse still the loss of their livelihoods leading to psychosocial stress (Garbe, Ogurlu, Logan, & Cook, 2020). Research evidence also showed high levels of child abuse cases during the COVID-19 pandemic period, an outcome of parental stress (Brown, Doom, Lechuga-Peña, Watamura, & Koppels, 2020; Kovler et al., 2020).

Objectives of the panel
Enumerate how technology was used in the continuity of learning and interventions for adolescents’ during COVID-19, and highlight the lessons learned
Importance to CIES, and Structure of the panel
This proposed panel is one of many, that we anticipate will invigorate discussions on COVID-19 in three studies: The first study looked at how the radio was used to enhance the continuity of an afterschool support program in the urban informal settlements; the second study assessed the status of learning at home, the challenges faced by adolescents and their parents during the pandemic and related coping strategies. The study participants included adolescents in secondary school; the third study investigated the factors associated with school retention among marginalized adolescents in Kenya, following COVID-19 school closures.
The data for the first two studies comes from a program, the Advancing Learning Outcomes and Transformational Change (ALOT Change) that was implemented in Korogocho and Viwandani – two informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya with intervention activities including holiday homework support, mentorship in soft skills, career awareness, service learning, digital literacy, and parental counseling. The third study leverages two quantitative COVID-19 knowledge, attitudes, and practice (KAP) data collected between 2020 and 2022 drawing primarily on existing cohorts of vulnerable adolescents in four counties (Nairobi, Wajir, Kilifi, and Kisumu) in Kenya. These cohorts were from ongoing (pre-pandemic) impact evaluation studies of girls’ empowerment programs.

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