The pandemic of COVID 19 has significant impacts on all sectors of social, economic, and political life around the world, including education. In mid-2020, more than 1.2 billion students, at all levels of education worldwide, were unable to take class in person (UNESCO, 2020). There is an emerging body of literature on the impacts of school closures on learning experiences and the well-being of students around the world (Donnelly & Patrinos, 2021; Oliveira et al. 2020, Lichand et al. 2021; Ardington et al. 2021). Existing studies show that girls are more likely to be disadvantaged by school closures, especially in societies with higher rates of gender inequality (Mendez-Acosta & Evans 2020). This paper aims to contribute early evidence in the emerging field of research on gendered impacts of COVID and addresses perspectives of teachers on girls’ learning experiences during COVID 19 related school closures.  

Literature argues that gender norms play a significant role in teaching and learning experiences. There is wide ranging research which highlights that schools are gendered institutions (Connell 1987) and that teachers, in the global North and South have a significant impact on children’s achievements and experiences (Gordon 2000; Swain 2002; Francis 2010; Logan & Beoku-Beta 2002; Ouma & Nam 2015; Shabaya & Konadu-Agyemang 2004). Gender equality and education are priorities of the EU development policy. The latest report on the role of the EU development cooperation in addressing the pandemic highlights the role of teachers in the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals of quality education for all (EU, 2021). While literature is emerging on the negative impact of school closures on girls in the global South (Ardington et al. 2021), less is known about the role of teachers in these dynamics. The inclusion of teachers’ voices from the Global South in the discussion about gendered impacts of school closures not only helps us to develop a better understanding of dynamics in schools but also provides evidence for the further planning of the EU programmes and policies.

The paper is based on the data from rural Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone is one of the poorest countries of the world and has an adult literacy rate of 32% with a Gender Parity Index (GPI) in adult literacy of 0.60 (UNESCO 2018). Since the end of the civil war in 2002, serious efforts have been made to improve access to primary education and enhance gender equality in schools. The COVID 19 pandemic caused a significant disruption of education as schools were closed for more than six months from late March to early October 2020. Before the pandemic enrolment rates have grown significantly in recent years with a current Gross Enrolment Rate of 121% (UNESCO, 2018). However, despite enhanced educational opportunities for girls, equal access to education remains a challenge, especially in rural areas of the country (Galloway & Cannonier, 2019). Literature shows that significant gender disparities in average years of schooling and quality and types of education persist in the country (Menzel, 2019, Schneider, 2019; Williams & Opdam 2017), connected with wider patterns of gender inequality in the society at large (Schneider, 2019; Coulter 2009). However, while there is a growing number of studies on general gender related inequalities in Sierra Leone, it is still little known about the role of teachers in (re)production of gender norms and values in the country. This paper aims to contribute to these debates.  We document how girls’ education is framed within the context of deeply embedded gendered norms and address challenges which arise given the growing stigmatization of womanhood in the context of ongoing health crisis and abject poverty.   

The paper draws on qualitative data of a mixed methods longitudinal study of gender, schooling, well-being and the everyday experiences of primary school children in a rural district of northern Sierra Leone. The qualitative element of this longitudinal study comprises the case study of four rural communities. The case study communities were chosen based on such factors as ethnic and linguistic diversity as well as socio-economic diversity. Our qualitative sample includes communities speaking 3 different languages with the adult population engaged in mining, fishing or/ and agriculture. Each village case study comprises four intergenerational families (16 in total), consisting of in-depth interviews with children, their parents, older siblings and grandparents. The research started when children were in class 1 (8/7 years old) and the researchers returned to the field each year over the next 3 years. Additionally, research included individual interviews with school teachers and headmasters along with focus group discussions with children, youth and elders in each of the communities. The research project started before the COVID 19 pandemic in 2018. This paper is based on the data gathered from phone interviews with headteachers of case study schools conducted during the school closure in June 2020 along with the data collected during two fieldworks that took place soon after the school reopening in October 2020 and at the end of the academic year in May-June 2021. This paper primarily draws on the analysis of interviews with headteachers and teachers. The research followed the ethical procedures approved by the University human ethics research committee, including informed consent. All participants had the right to withdraw from the study at any point. In total, 20 interviews with teachers and headteachers from four case study schools were conducted during two waves of data collection. All interviews were translated to English and analysed using Maxqda qualitative software in order to identify the most recurrent themes across the interviews. Later the codes were clustered to generate a coding frame and to examine the relationships between different clusters of codes. This technique allowed the identification of gendered structure of narrative themes. These highlight how education and gender are interpreted and framed by teachers. Comparison of different case studies, moreover, highlights the potential variation of these experiences according to teachers’ different gendered and socio-economic positionalities.

The research demonstrated that gendered norms are evident across the case study schools. Our analysis also suggests complex dynamics at play as teachers negotiate tensions between increasing expectations for girls’ education through wider government and global initiatives on gender equality and relatively rigid gender norms in the context of the ongoing crisis. Our research highlights a double effect of the Covid pandemic on the education of girls. First, school closures led to an increased workload and higher risks of sexual abuse for girls. Second, the school closure reinforced negative stereotypes of girls, in evidence before the pandemic, but exacerbated because of extended absence from school. We argue that teachers’ negative attitudes of girls as students affect their perspectives on the impacts of the COVID related school closure and expectations of girls’ academic results after the school reopening. The analysis shows that while education of girls is widely perceived as important and valuable, most teachers view girls as “slow learners” less capable of knowledge acquisition than boys. They demonstrated lower expectations towards girls’ academic success after the reopening which were grounded in these beliefs about girls as less capable students. The research also demonstrated that the concept of sexuality is closely connected with the narrative of girls’ poor performance in school. Narratives that girls are unable to control their sexuality and can be easily misled by men when they are out of school are common in interviews. The research demonstrates that these narratives are deeply rooted in negative gendered images of girls, highlighting the role of teachers in (re)production of gender norms. The paper stresses the necessity of the inclusion of teachers as an important stakeholder group in the further interventions aimed to reduce the gendered impact of COVID in the Global North and the Global South.

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