As we walked through classrooms in Bangladesh, we were struck by the hope and aspirations of the children. Already, children in grades three or four, said they wanted to be teachers, scientists, and prime ministers. They knew they must get an education in order achieve these dreams, but like so many children around the world, without… Read more →←
A few weeks ago, after his last day at kindergarten, my son wanted to show me his portfolio. Marveling at the delightful collection of drawings, crafts, photos and teacher notes, I couldn’t believe how lucky we are that he got to experience a full year of kindergarten, in spite of COVID-19. Since we moved to Florence, Italy, at the end… Read more →←
A common fear among policymakers is that government-provided benefits for households with young children – including cash transfers – may increase incentives to have children, to gain or maintain program eligibility. This is a topic we’ve had our eyes on for some time through the Transfer Project. By conducting reviews of… Read more →←
Play is key for child development and the mental health of children and caregivers. Play is an essential part of development in the early years. Play is the way young children from birth to three learn, as they explore and begin to make sense of the world around them. Research shows that play supports many interrelated facets of… Read more →←
The Data and Analytics Section of UNICEF generates, analyzes and publishes hundreds of globally comparable indicators on children and women. They are now explicitly licensed as open data using the popular Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 IGO license.This is the final step in a two-year long initiative aided by a grant from the Bill and… Read more →←
New methodological guidelines accelerate progress, and enable education systems to become more inclusive, resilient and effective. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly half of the world’s children could not read and understand a simple text by the age of 10. Now, school closures implemented worldwide have exacerbated inequalities… Read more →←
Data from household surveys show that many school-aged children, especially the most disadvantaged, do not have access to the internet at home. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused the largest disruption of education in modern history: at its peak, 1.6 billion children worldwide were affected by school closures. Although it’s been more… Read more →←
When the COVID-19 pandemic closed schools worldwide governments rapidly worked to deploy remote learning to continue education. 9 in 10 countries around the world used online learning platforms to support children’s learning in 2020. However, understanding of how students, especially those from marginalized households in remote areas,… Read more →←
Even in the most difficult settings, some schools excel in learning, champion gender equality, and have low drop-out rates. These “positive deviant” schools provide valuable lessons on how to improve similar but less performing schools. Through the Data Must Speak (DMS) Positive Deviance research, UNICEF and partners identify… Read more →←
Violence against children and violence against women often occur under the same roof and share many risk factors. The economic insecurities and uncertainty brought on by COVID-19 raise the risk of violence within the family – already extraordinarily high even before the pandemic. Women and children were likely to experience… Read more →←