Gendered Impacts of COVID-19 School Closures: Insights from Frontline Organizations

  • R Research Project/Report/Study

I Inactive

Key Information

COVID-19 school closures pose significant operational and financial risks to frontline organizations delivering vital education services, including non-governmental organizations, school operators, and other service providers. In this survey, we ask these organizations about the challenges they are facing in light of COVID-19 closures, particularly for girls. The responses shed light on how COVID-19 is affecting education service operations—and what providers are doing in response. We uncover three major findings. First, 69 percent of the respondents believe that girls are at a greater risk than boys from COVID-19 school closures, with more than half of those respondents citing girls’ exposure to gender-based violence as a major concern. Second, close to half (42 percent) of the respondents report that their organization is experiencing budget cuts, with 73 percent of those respondents citing a drop in funding from private and philanthropic donors. Third, despite the financial and operational disruptions due to school closures and lockdowns, 89 percent of the respondents report planning and delivering additional vital interventions during the pandemic. It is crucial, now more than ever, that donors and policymakers support and engage with frontline organizations delivering vital services for girls and their communities.


Lead Implementing Organization(s)

Location(s)

Global

Government Affiliation

Non-governmental program

Years

2020 - 2020

Partner(s)

Not applicable or unknown

Ministry Affiliation

Unknown

Funder(s)

Not applicable or unknown

COVID-19 Response

New for COVID-19

Geographic Scope

Global / regional

Meets gender-transformative education criteria from the TES  

Unknown

Areas of Work Back to Top

Education areas

Other skills

  • Life skills/sexuality education
  • Rights/empowerment education
  • Social and emotional learning

Quality

  • School facilities

Cross-cutting areas

  • Adolescent pregnancy/childbearing
  • COVID-19 Response
  • Early/child marriage
  • Economic/livelihoods (including savings/financial inclusion, etc.)
  • Empowerment
  • Female genital mutilation/cutting
  • Food/water security
  • Gender equality
  • Menstrual hygiene management
  • Nutrition
  • Other aspects of sexual and reproductive health
  • Sexual harassment & coercion
  • Social and gender norms and beliefs
  • Violence (at home, in relationships)

Program participants

Target Audience(s)

Boys in school, Community leaders, Girls in school, Youth

Age

5 - 25

School Enrolment Status

All in school

School Level

  • Lower primary
  • Upper primary
  • Lower secondary
  • Upper secondary
  • Vocational
  • Tertiary

Other populations reached

Not applicable or unknown

Participants include

Not applicable or unknown

Program Approaches Back to Top

Community engagement/advocacy/sensitization

  • Community-based monitoring (e.g. school report cards)
  • Community mobilization
  • General awareness-raising/community engagement
  • Technical assistance/capacity building to civil society organizations or governments

Curriculum/learning

  • Gender-sensitive curricula

Health and childcare services

  • Adolescent-friendly health services

Life skills education

  • Comprehensive sexuality education (CSE)
  • Gender, rights and power

Menstrual hygiene management

  • Educating girls about menstruation

Other

  • Informational interventions (e.g. returns to education)
  • Other activities to end child marriage (not captured above)

Policy/legal environment

  • Advocating changes to existing laws/policies
  • Public-private partnerships
  • System-wide review and reform

School-related gender-based violence

  • Support in and around schools (e.g. peer counseling, adult-to-student counseling)
  • Training of school personnel (including teachers)
  • Violence prevention curriculum/activities for students

Social/gender norms change

  • Engaging parents/caregivers of students or school-age children/adolescents

Teaching

  • In-service teacher training – gender-responsive pedagogy
  • Pre-service teacher training – pedagogy general
  • Teacher incentives

Women's empowerment programs

  • Advocacy/action

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Program Goals Back to Top

Education goals

  • Improved academic skills (literacy and numeracy)
  • Increased grade attainment
  • Increased school completion (general)
  • Increased school enrolment (general)
  • Reduced absenteeism
  • Reduced grade repetition

Cross-cutting goals

  • Improved critical consciousness
  • Improved health - other
  • Improved nutrition
  • Improved sexual and reproductive health
  • Improved understanding of sexual harassment, coercion, and consent
  • Increased advocacy/civic engagement
  • Increased knowledge of HIV, puberty, and sexual and reproductive health
  • More equitable gender attitudes and norms
  • Reduced adolescent pregnancy/childbearing
  • Reduced child marriage
  • Reduced school-related gender-based violence (SRGBV)

Additional Information Back to Top

Primary Contact

Rita Perakis
Center for Global Development (CGD)
Assistant Director and Senior Policy Analyst, Global Education
rperakis@cgdev.org