The European Commission is holding a webinar examining the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on early childhood education.
Early childhood education is recognised as an essential part of everyone’s learning journey. Across Europe, governments are committed to improving the quality of early childhood education and making sure every child can access it.
However, since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, early childhood education services have struggled, as many other education and care services, to cope with additional challenges. The pandemic raised many questions, such as how restrictions would affect young children and how far the pandemic would impact learning loss, staff safety and loss of finances.
The Commission’s webinar, which will take place on 5 October, aims to explore how governments and others have dealt with the challenges to early childhood education caused by the pandemic. Representatives from the Organisation for Economic Co‑operation and Development (OECD) and the Network of Experts working on the Social dimension of Education and Training (NESET) will present the results of reports investigating the impact of COVID-19 on early childhood education. Representatives from the Slovenian education ministry and Eurochild, among others, will share their experiences of the pandemic in a discussion panel, which will also examine the reports’ findings.
Details of the event are available on the Commission website. The event will also be streamed live on the website, and on the Erasmus+ Facebook and Twitter channels.