The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic caused global disruption to everyday life, including the closing of businesses and schools. For children, the pandemic has had impacts beyond health (United Nations, 2022) and posed challenges to meeting the Sustainable Development Goals with relation to education (Ellanki et al., 2022). Due to school closures, an estimated 1.5 billion children worldwide were out of school (Goulds, 2020). Since the early days of the pandemic there has been awareness of the impacts of school closures on the learning experiences of students around the world, including concerns relating to learning loss (Donnelly and Patrinos, 2022). In addition, the pandemic has brought formal education into homes and shifted family involvement in children’s education (Hoskins et al., 2022), although the international literature highlights the uneven distribution and access to ‘remote’ formal learning (Simba et al., 2020). Within Europe for example, Blasko et al. (2022) found differences between children’s access to quality distance learning materials such as a lack of access to the internet, books and parental support. They argue that home-learning resources – particularly for younger children – were already important before the pandemic, with this importance increasing during the school closures.

In comparison with the Global North, children in the Global South faced particular challenges during this time. School closures were also associated with learning loss (Kusumaningrum et al., 2021) and although in some instances this was mediated by the turn to online learning, disparate access to technology meant this solution was unequal (Outhred et al., 2020; Simba et al., 2020). There was a significant urban/rural divide in access to technology compounded by remote locations (Srinivasan et al., 2021; Asadullah and Bhattacharjee, 2022). Of particular importance to rural communities, where parental education and literacy is often low, is the continuation of contact and interaction with teachers (Wangdi and Rai, 2022; Wang et al. 2021). The growing literature on children’s learning during the school closures in the rural Global South is mostly focused on experiences of teachers and secondary school students, with limited focus on the experiences of primary school children in these remote locations. This paper contributes to this gap by focusing on primary school children, as well as the experiences of their teachers and families, in rural communities in Sierra Leone. It draws on a longitudinal mixed-methods study, with a particular focus on data collected both during and after the country’s school closures and highlights the strategies undertaken to support children’s learning in the absence of technological solutions.

Sierra Leone is one of the poorest countries in the world, and has low levels of adult literacy and intergenerational education (UNESCO, 2018). Since the end of a brutal civil war in 2002, there has been efforts made to improve access to primary education for all school-age children. The COVID-19 pandemic caused a significant disruption to learning due to schools being closed from March-October 2020. Sierra Leone has also had previous experience in dealing with disease outbreaks, having seen a devastating Ebola epidemic from 2014-2016, six years prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the outcomes for the Sierra Leone government from this experience was ensuring children could continue to learn in future emergencies (MEST, 2018). This paper highlights the strategies taken by schools, communities and families to support children’s continued learning during the COVID-19 school closures, as well as discussing the challenges faced as a result of extreme poverty and rurality.

To explore children’s experiences with their learning during the school closures, we draw on data from a longitudinal mixed methods study. This study, which ran from 2018-2021 explored children’s experiences during their first three years of primary school in 100 communities in a rural district of northern Sierra Leone. The data for this paper is primarily drawn from two phases of this data collection. The first phase was conducted during the school closures in June and July 2020, and consisted of a survey with 77 headteachers, and semi-structured interviews with four headteachers in four case study communities. The survey and interviews focused on how the schools responded to the closures and what support was in place for children’s continued learning. The second phase was conducted in November 2020 after schools reopened and includes a survey of approximately 2000 children across the 100 communities, as well as semi-structured interviews with 16 caregivers, 14 children and 8 teachers in each of the four case study communities. The survey asked children what they did during the school closures, while interviews with caregivers and children focused on the impact of the pandemic on family life, as well as children’s activities during this time. These interviews formed part of an ongoing in-depth exploration with 16 families across the multiple years of the study and altogether give a vivid picture of everyday life in these communities, both pre- and post-pandemic. Interviews with teachers focused on their experiences as rural educators and what they were able to do to support children’s continued learning.

The research found that there was a rapid closure of schools following the official government notice, and that previous experience of dealing with school closures during the Ebola epidemic helped somewhat to prepare school staff for this period of school closures in the rural communities. Although nationally there were programmes in place for online and radio learning for children out of school, these were mostly unavailable for children in our study. Most children reported only studying at home, sometimes with the help of family members, particularly older siblings, with limited access to their teachers. Our paper illustrates the strategies undertaken to continue children’s learning as well as highlighting challenges faced as a result of being located in an extremely poor rural community. It highlights some ways that schools and families, particularly in the rural global south, can continue to provide access to quality education for children in emergency or challenging circumstances without the use of technology.

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