ERIC Number: EJ1421981
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2024-Apr
Pages: 39
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0020-7187
EISSN: EISSN-1878-4658
Risks to Child Development and School Readiness among Children under Six in Pakistan: Findings from a Nationally Representative Phone Survey
Elizabeth Hentschel; Heather Tomlinson; Amer Hasan; Aisha Yousafzai; Amna Ansari; Mahreen Tahir-Chowdhry; Mina Zamand
International Journal of Early Childhood, v56 n1 p129-167 2024
This paper analyzes the risks to child development and school readiness among children under age 6 in Pakistan. Drawing on a nationally representative telephone survey conducted in the midst of a global pandemic, between December 2021 and February 2022, we present the first nationally representative estimates of child development for children under 3 years of age and school readiness for children 3-6 years of age, using internationally validated instruments. The paper examines how risk factors that were exacerbated due to the COVID-19 pandemic, such as parental distress, lack of psychosocial stimulation, food insecurity, low maternal education, no enrollment in early childhood education, and living in a rural area, are associated with children's outcomes. The data indicate that more than half (57 percent) of parents with children under age 3 were distressed and that 61 percent of households reported cutting down on the size of or skipping meals since the start of the pandemic. The data reveal that over half of parents fail to engage in adequate psychosocial stimulation with their child and enrollment in early childhood education is very low (39 percent). The paper finds that child development outcomes decline rapidly as the number of risks increase. Specifically, for children under 3 years, lack of psychosocial stimulation at home and higher levels of parental distress were most significantly associated with lower child development levels. For a child aged 3-6 years, early childhood education enrollment and the amount of psychosocial stimulation the child received at home had the strongest association with school readiness scores.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Child Development, School Readiness, Young Children, Telephone Surveys, COVID-19, Pandemics, At Risk Students, Stress Variables, Parents, Food, Hunger, Parent Child Relationship, Early Childhood Education, Individual Development
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Early Childhood Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Pakistan
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A