Parental/Caregiver Engagement in Early Learning Systems: Findings From Early Learning Partnership (ELP) COVID-19 Research in Pakistan and Ethiopia

ABSTRACT Caregiver support has been identified as a key feature of systems that deliver high-quality early childhood education. The purpose of this study is to explore the degree of engagement of parents/caregivers of preschool children and the modes of learning they used in Ethiopia and Pakistan in supporting their children through home learning during school closures caused by the COVID−19 pandemic. This study is based on a phone survey of over 450 parents and 48 head teachers teachers in Ethiopia and more than 2,000 parents and over 150 head teachers and teachers in Pakistan between August 2020-March 2021. The study finds differences in the level of engagement of caregivers with young children in the two contexts, with more of the sampled caregivers reporting engaging with their children in Pakistan than in Ethiopia. There was also relatively little reported engagement of headteachers and teachers in both contexts, with much of the focus resting on the maintenance of hygiene and keeping children and families safe while learning took a backseat to some degree. There are clear differences in the use of distance learning with parents from richer socioeconomic backgrounds in both contexts better able to engage their children in high-tech learning solutions.

education globally.Caregiver/parental engagement and its assorted ramifications also have come to a head with the onset of the pandemic.The COVID−19 pandemic has further exacerbated existing failings as it led to school closures and significantly disrupted pedagogical structures in early childhood education, which heavily rely on face-to-face interactions with children and their caregivers.
This effect was particularly pronounced in Global South settings, where young children from marginalized families and communities tend to bear a heavy "pandemic burden" (Save the Children & UNICEF Children, 2020).Very early evidence during the pandemic in Ethiopia 3 noted sharply declining attendance rates in ECD programs, which raised alarms among educationists.The pandemic is likely to have differentially impacted the more disadvantaged families already facing financial and health crises.The disruptions posed by the pandemic have also meant that not only were many young children unable to access early childhood education and care, they were also entirely reliant on their caregivers to meet all of their developmental and learning needs with caregivers and family members taking on new roles of "learning facilitators, pseudo teachers and coaches" (Cohen & Kupferschmidt, 2020, p. 45).
During the COVID−19 pandemic, the sudden shift to online learning also presented new opportunities and challenges for school systems, children, and their caregivers.With countries across the world having quickly pivoted to remote forms of instruction, 4 the youngest children were least able to independently take advantage of remote-learning opportunities (Nugroho et al., 2020).There are gaps in our understanding on the extent to which parents in select regions of Ethiopia and Pakistan were engaged in their young children's learning during school closures and specifically the types of learning modalities they used to further their children's learning experiences during the COVID−19 pandemic.It is also important to ask to what extent school systems and providers were able to extend support to parents and caregivers of young children.Based on this, this study explores the following research questions: (1) To what extent were the parents engaged with their child's learning during school closures?
How does it differ by gender and parental education?(2) What was the level of support extended to parents from the school systems/service providers during school closures?(3) What forms of learning modalities (such as printed learning packages, radio, TV, voice/text/ web-based instruction etc.) were used by the parents to support their child's learning during school closures?
Ethiopia and Pakistan were part of the Early Learning Partnership (ELP) 5 research and have collected rich data on ECE in select regions since 2019.When the COVID−19 pandemic hit, funding was made available in these two countries to collect data on the immediate impact of the pandemic on early learning systems with a focus on the home learning environment and the level of preparedness of schools and teachers to respond to the pandemic in the context of early childhood education.This study is based on the data collected during the pandemic and offers an opportunity to present findings from two resource-constrained, albeit potentially different, contexts.Data were collected from parents/caregivers and teacher and headteachers from both countries between August 2020-March 2021.Data were collected from respondents from six regions in Ethiopia and eight districts in Punjab province in Pakistan.While the data and the analysis are not representative and the findings are not generalizable to the provinces and regions in these two contexts, they provide interesting descriptive insights to help answer the questions posed above.It is important to note that this research also faced pandemic-related challenges, in that data were collected in both countries while the pandemic was still ongoing and that severely limited researchers themselves.The restrictions in mobility have meant that we have had to rely on phone interviews and "remote" data collection methods, which means that the voices of those who do not have access to phones or who were especially hard to reach may have been left unheard.

Literature review
Parents remain the most critical inputs into a child's learning experience.They are a child's first and potentially the most influential teachers (Darling, 2004).Parental "engagement" in a child's learning experience takes several forms, including: good parenting, the provision of a stable and safe environment, fostering intellectual stimulation and discussions, engaging constructively with the schools or education providers, and the development of positive social and educational values that generate high aspirations among children.Evidence from the health sciences discipline by Yogman et al. (2018) finds that parental engagement with children through play is a non-frivolous and powerful means of enhancing brain function and promoting executive functioning to promote healthy childhood development.Parental "engagement" is also notably different from parental "involvement," with the former incorporating a greater degree of commitment and the ultimate ownership of actions in education as compared to the latter (Goodall & Montgomery, 2014).
Types of parental engagement with young children can also differ depending on the types of activities parents undertake or the location in which the engagement takes place (home versus school).Activities and behaviors that foster a conducive home learning environment, such as providing learning materials or supporting children with homework -home-based parental engagement -have been shown to have improved ECD outcomes among children in a range of contexts (e.g., Black et al., 2017;Jeong et al., 2016Jeong et al., , 2018)).The exposure to literature through books at an early age also can be a powerful means of demonstrating and developing agency among preschool children (Mathis, 2016).Parental engagement can also take the form of engagement in school-based activities, such as participation in the classroom through volunteering at school (Barnett & Masse, 2007), while homeschool conferencing refers to parent-teacher interactions about the child's progress, attending parentteacher meetings or discussing the child's learning in other ways.
Studies have shown that parents need support in redirecting children's activities and attending classroom activities with them (Kurtulmus, 2016).Therefore, developing ways in which parents can be engaged and involved as active actors within the delegation, governance, and accountability mechanisms of ECE system is important.There is, however, an important difference between involving parents in schooling and engaging parents in learning; it is the latter that has shown to have the greatest positive impact (Emerson et al., 2012).Although types of parental engagement -behavioral, personal, and intellectual -and building institutional capacity have demonstrated the greatest importance to the relationship between learning outcomes and parental involvement, the role of parents is more important than the role of schools and communities (Emerson et al., 2012).A stimulating home learning environment that consists of a variety of educational materials and positive reinforcement of the value of education by parents is integral to intellectual and social development in children of all ages (Ma et al., 2016).A strategy of engagement that involves effective support from schools also has been noted to be important (Goodall & Vorhaus, 2011).
Parental engagement is, however, a very context-and culture-specific construct and can vary significantly based on parents' socio-economic status, their own educational achievement levels and more specifically maternal or paternal education levels, family ethnicity, and parents' own physical and psycho-social health (e.g., Carreón et al., 2005;Greenberg, 2012).There is evidence, albeit from the high-income context of the United States, that parents with lower educational attainment or those belonging to more disadvantaged backgrounds, may especially benefit from higher communication with teachers and schools, with Lin et al. (2019) noting that positive perceptions of parent-teacher communications among low-income parents are, in particular, associated with a higher incidence of home-learning activities by parents.Further evidence from the United States (Dexter & Stacks, 2014) that focused on the associations between parent-child relationships, shared-book reading quality, and child development outcomes among low-income families found that the specific parenting practices that facilitated children's language development included higher quality shared reading interactions.
Parental education and poverty levels also have been shown to have an effect on parents' approach toward and involvement with their children (Sime & Sheridan, 2014).Evidence from Ghana also finds that family characteristics, and specifically family wealth, education levels, and home level, are critical indicators of parental engagement across different household subgroups (Bartoli et al., 2022).More specifically, the study notes that parents are typically the initiators of most types of engagement with children, mainly because schools lack structural policies to involve parents in their young children's learning.
Young children have been known to have faced potentially adverse risks during the COVID−19 pandemic, which included immediate impacts on health, nutrition, care, and education along with future losses in learning and academic attainment (Yoshikawa et al., 2020).The economic impact of the pandemic due to ECE closures is also known to be of a large magnitude.A simulation study by Lopez Boo et al. ( 2020) estimated these costs across 140 high-, middle-, and low-income countries and identified significant losses in early learning opportunities, which in turn will lead to earning losses in the future.Similar insights emerge from a study on early years in Ethiopia by Kim et al. (2021).Their research shows that along with the health and economic burdens from the pandemic, households have faced difficulties in supporting children's learning at home.This is more so the case because households have had limited access to learning resources at home during school closures, with striking disparities between urban and rural and between the poorest and richest households.Furthermore, other factors brought on by the COVID−19 pandemic -social isolation, parental stress and adversity, and uncertainty -have impacted the psycho-social well-being of children.Soltero-González and Gillanders (2021) also indicate similar challenges for parents of young children during school closures.
The onset of the pandemic and a termination of face-to-face classes for students also brought a discussion on remote learning and the use of both digital and non-digital modes of learning to the forefront.While many countries quickly initiated remote learning through the development of radioand TV-enabled programs, most of these programs were geared toward older school-going children.Some of this was due to a focus of limited funding relative to the higher levels of education (Nugroho et al., 2020) but it also stemmed from the fact that the early childhood years are perhaps the most challenging to transition into online modes owing to the dominant modalities of interactive classroom transactions (Santos & de Lacerda, 2020).The use of high-tech solutions in resource-poor contexts, such as Ethiopia and Pakistan, also may be limited due to the lack of adequate technology to transition swiftly onto such mediums and/or inability to use them appropriately to enable child learning.In India, for example, Jain et al. (2021) found that the shift to online learning deepened existing socioeconomic divides among teachers across grade levels, and ultimately their pupils.Singh (2022) notes that while government pre-school workers (Anganwadi workers) were called away to attend to pandemic duties (Neetha, 2021), those children attending private schools or from more advantaged backgrounds were able to maintain continuity in their children's learning; in this regard, "technology has not emerged as a panacea for the young and the marginalized with little or no access to it" (Singh, 2022).
It also has been noted that the use of high-tech solutions to enable child learning in the early years makes the role of the caregivers even more central and remote interventions should either directly target their needs or support them to mediate their child's access to and learning through technology (Korin, 2021).In contexts such as Ethiopia and Pakistan, this requires a deeper understanding of constraints posed by literacy levels, socio-economic status, and even the cultural norms and beliefs about child learning (Korin, 2021).There is a lack of evidence on the interrelation between parental engagement and school closures during the pandemic and this study attempts to provide some evidence on the experiences of caregivers/parents in engaging with their young children in two lowresource contexts.

Contextual overview -ECE in Ethiopia and Pakistan
Following the endorsement of the 2010 National Policy Framework for Early Childhood Care and Education 6 (ECCE), the commitment of the Ministry of Education of Ethiopia to preschool education has significantly increased.This is also evidenced from the increase in gross enrollment ratio of children age 4-6 years, from 4% in 2010to 44 % in 2022(FDRE-MOE, 2022).There are three preschool delivery modalities.The O-class preschool modality is a one-year 7 governmentimplemented program where 4-to 6-year-olds are enrolled for preparation for grade 1 (76.5% of gross enrollment in the early years is of this type).The 2-to 3-years kindergarten modality is largely owned and implemented by the private sector (contributing to about 21% of gross enrollment).The third modality is more informal and is available for children who have no access to either of the first two modalities.It is called the Child to Child Program and contributes about 2.3% of the total enrollment.The Ministry of Education has recently launched a reform program on early childhood development and education (ECDE) to make the program more comprehensive and multi-sectoral, where Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health, and Ministry of Women, Children and Youth Affairs are intending to jointly contribute to the reform.
In Pakistan, Article 25-A of the Constitution 8 (Right to Education) includes exclusive provisions in three of the five provincial and area laws for pre-school education and ECE for children age 3 and older who are not yet enrolled in school.The development and launch of the Single National Curriculum (SNC) 2020 has reinforced a structured approach toward ECE pedagogy in the province of Punjab.Since then, there has been a progressively growing recognition of the value of early years and the concurrent desire to provide institutional support by the School Education Department, Punjab (SED) to achieve ECE provision in the province at scale; however, there have been lags with regard to implementation of these reforms and subsequently early learning delivery, outcomes, and infrastructure.While latest data on child enrollment in pre-primary collected by the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 9 indicates that the percentage of children age 3-5 years old who were enrolled in some early years rural settings did not change between 2019 and 2020 (39% of all schoolage children in the age bracket of 3-5 years were enrolled in schools in 2020, as compared to 39% in 2019), the COVID−19 pandemic did anecdotally have a disproportionate impact on children in the early years.

COVID−19 in Pakistan and Ethiopia and system responses within the early learning sector
Following the confirmation of the first case of COVID−19 in Ethiopia on March 13, 2020, the government of Ethiopia responded swiftly and announced the suspension of schools from March 16, 2020.More than 26 million students, including 3.2 million young children who have participated in pre-primary education, were affected by the school closures.When a six-month state of emergency due to the COVID−19 pandemic ended in September 2020, the government announced the school reopening plan, which started from October 2020 with a phased approach, prioritizing schools in rural areas.However, according to the survey 10 conducted by the team of researchers in this study, 74% of the schools in urban areas and 87% of the schools in rural areas did not have hand washing facilities, which made the school reopening a challenging decision.As a result, many stakeholders, including parents, were concerned about the safety of students during school reopening.
When the schools were closed nationwide in Ethiopia, the Ministry of Education announced the Education Sector COVID−19 Preparedness and Response Plan on April 3, 2020.This plan included the provision of distance learning through available media lessons via radio and TV, focusing on primary and secondary education.Despite this immediate response by the Ethiopian government, preprimary education was excluded from the strategy.As a result, many pre-primary students were likely to have little or no education during the closure period.
Owing to its proximity to China, Pakistan was among the first countries to adopt strict prevention measures at the onset of the COVID−19 pandemic, including widespread school closures.Schools in Sindh province closed on February 14, 2020, followed by nationwide school closures by March 14, 2020.After six months, schools began to reopen gradually, with headteachers and teachers instructed to collect parents' phone/cell numbers for communication on safety and learning.However, further school closures were instituted in November 2020 and then in May and June 2021 as subsequent waves of the pandemic hit the country.The COVID−19 pandemic has had serious short-and long-term ramifications on education outcomes across the country.According to the Ministry of Federal Education & Professional Training, an estimated 40 million children across all grade levels were impacted.Geven and Hasan (2020), in their estimate of learning losses in Pakistan due to the pandemic-related school closures, noted that "learning poverty" (the share of children who do not learn to read and understand a simple text by age 10) is likely to go up to 79% in the country from an already high estimate of 75%.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that during the pandemic, while upper grades from primary schooling onwards were offered some distance learning opportunities as well as regular contacts by teachers for assignment/homework, such a systematic approach was lacking for ECE.At the federal level, the government offered tele-school to children staying at home during the pandemic.Arguably, children who were not likely to have enrolled in ECE regardless of the pandemic may have benefited from the use of widespread TV/radio resources, such as Teleschool offered in Pakistan. 11ECE-relevant shows were telecasted for an hour daily at 8 a.m. on Pakistan's national television station.Incorporating younger children into distance learning initiatives was perhaps further problematized by the difficulty of assessment in ECE.
Table 1 provides details on school closures and re-openings, as well as how the government responded and the extent to which pre-primary was included in the response.

Study methods and data collection
This study uses primary phone-survey data collected in select regions from Pakistan and Ethiopia during August 2020-March 2021.The survey questionnaires administered in both contexts were based on Measuring Early Learning Quality Outcomes (MELQO) initiative's modules. 12The MELQO project was first initiated in 2014 and has since been rolled out in several countries.Its modules, including Measure of Development and Early Learning (MODEL) and Measuring Early Learning Environments (MELE), are aimed at making early learning assessments accessible across the globe and cover a core set of items that have cross-country relevance; the MODEL module is focused on "measuring child development and learning," while the MELE module is focused on "measuring early learning environments." 13 The survey instruments in this study were designed during a series of virtual workshops with the World Bank and researchers from the five Systems Research Initiative countries 14 in May 2020.The purpose of the surveys was to provide the country governments and the World Bank with rapid information to help with their responses to COVID−19.Data in both contexts were collected from parents/caregivers 15 and from teachers and headteachers/ principals.For the Caregiver Survey at the household level, the adapted version of the MODEL module included questions on the child's home learning environment, parental engagement in the child's learning activities, socioeconomic characteristics of the household, and access to government health and social security schemes, as well as questions gauging the potential effect of school closures on the psychosocial well-being of children and their parents.
For the teacher and head teacher survey, the adapted version of the MELE module included questions on professional development and financial support extended to the teachers/headteachers, the level of engagement with parents, use of technology in communicating/engaging with children/caregivers, and support received by teachers/headteachers from their respective supervisors.
In Ethiopia, data were collected from six regional locations: Addis Ababa, Amhara, Benishangul-Gumuz, Oromia, SNNP, 16 and Tigray.A total of 80 participants 17 from each location were sampled, making up a total of 480 caregiver respondents in total.This research was conducted by the research consortium members from the Ethiopia Early Learning Partnership team and included the Ethiopian Policy Studies Institute, Addis Ababa University, and the REAL Center at University of Cambridge.These regional locations have been selected from the total seven regions that were included in the ELP Systems Research Program Phase 1 in Ethiopia.Moreover, the selected sample of Caregivers/Parents and Principals/Teachers was the subsample of the 2019/2020 ELP Systems Research Program Phase 1 and the already recorded phone numbers of the respondents provided an opportunity to carry out the phone surveys.
The Caregiver Survey included a core set of items drawn and adapted from the Measure of Early Learning Environment (MELE) module of the Measure of Early Learning Quality and Outcome (MELQO) tools.The items were adapted along with other pertinent questions, including items on country-specific context, familial experiences during the COVID−19 pandemic, experiences of ECCE-age (both enrolled and out of school) children, access to information/resources that caregivers have had, caregivers' engagement in a child's learning activities during school closures, and caregivers' perspectives on reopening of schools.Additionally, data were collected from 48 principals and O-class teachers in 48 schools, one from each.There were six schools in each of the eight geographic locations.
In Pakistan, data were collected by Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi (ITA) 18 Pakistan's team with support from the World Bank as part of the Early Learning Partnership (ELP) Systems Research Program Phase 2. Data were collected from eight districts -Bahawalnagar, Chakwal, Chiniot, Faisalabad, Kasur, Lodhran, Multan, and Sargodha -in the Punjab province.These districts were randomly selected and ensured the representation of Central, Southern, and Northern regions of the province.For each of these districts, 20 villages with early childhood care and education (ECCE) schools were randomly picked and caregivers of 20 students from each ECCE school were selected to participate in the caregiver survey.This generated a total sample of 156 schools and 2,004 caregivers. 19Within each school, both the head teacher and ECE teacher 20 were interviewed, leading to a sample of 156 head teachers and 156 teachers.
Data collectors and supervisors in both country teams received training not only on how to internalize the tools of data collection but also on how to collect data using telephone calls, recording voices and coding responses on programmed tablets for the purpose.Since most of the questions were close-ended, coding on to the tablets/smartphones was relatively easy; open-ended questions were transcribed verbatim and translated into English.
While the teams in both countries were able to collect data rapidly in a very challenging and rapidly evolving crisis environment, there are some limitations to the data collected.In both Ethiopia and Pakistan, the surveys had to be conducted over the phone due to pandemic-related restrictions.This has proven to be challenging with regard to motivating the responders to complete the survey, response rate, and availability of respondents.Table 2 presents details of the sample and the approaches adopted in the two contexts.

Results and discussion
Tables 3 provides a description of the main variables used in the analysis for each country.The analysis is based on the presentation of simple descriptive statistics with chi-squared tests to estimate statistical differences.

Did parents engage with their children's learning during school closures in Ethiopia and Pakistan and, if so, how?
In most societies, caregivers/parents/extended family members/siblings tend to engage with young children (regardless of enrollment status or the pandemic).For example, there is evidence that just talking to infants benefits their speech and vocabulary development; however, it has been noted that this is not commonplace among poorer rural households in Tanzania. 21Other activities, such as playing with them or singing songs, may be used to engage with them more as they get older.Figure 1 presents simple descriptive statistics showcasing the extent of "parental engagement" with children across the two contexts.For ease of comparison, engagement in these activities has been termed as "non-academic," as it represents parental engagement in activities that, while not strictly academic in nature (e.g., playing with the child or singing songs or rhymes), very much contribute to a child's development.One could argue that reading or looking at books with children by caregivers is potentially an "academic" activity, albeit not necessarily linked to school-or curriculum-based activities.However, for the purpose of this study, only direct responses by caregivers saying whether they engaged in academic support with the children under their care have been classified to be "academic" and all other support has been noted to be "non-academic" while acknowledging that the difference between "academic" and "non-academic" support is a very blurred one, especially in the early years.
There appears to be a relatively high uptake of parental engagement in play, reading, or looking at picture books or singing songs to the child in Pakistan.Eighty-seven percent of the sampled caregivers reported having played with their child during the school closures in Pakistan (Figure 1).Similarly, 91% of caregivers reported having read books to their child and 87% reported having told stories to their child during the school closures.In Ethiopia, 74% of the surveyed caregivers reported having played with their child during the school closures.However, only about 40% and 54% of the caregivers in Ethiopia said that they were engaged in reading books/singing songs and telling stories to their children, respectively.
It is worth noting that what the term "academic engagement" has been captured in a different manner in each country.In the case of Ethiopia, caregivers were specifically asked whether the (index) child had been engaged in educational or learning activities at home since the coronavirus crisis, and the enumerators were given instructions to mention that this question relates to their engagement in child learning at home.In the case of Pakistan, the survey questionnaire did not include a similar question on educational or learning activities.However, parents were asked if they had engaged in early literacy (naming objects or animals, drawing or coloring things, and practicing writing) and early numeracy (naming shapes and colors, comparing size, and counting objects) activities with the child during school closures.To allow for some comparisons, these responses were used to create a dummy variable on "academic" engagement, which has been presented for the two countries.While imperfect, this allows us to present some form of comparison across the two contexts (Table 3).
In terms of "academic engagement" during school closures (Figure 2), findings from the survey revealed that not all preschool children enrolled in O-classes in Ethiopia received academic learning support from their caregivers in their homes.Only about 48% of parents and other household members said that they were engaged in supporting the learning activities of their children, while the remaining 52% did not.In the case of Pakistan, 89% of the caregivers reportedly were engaged in extending academic support to their children.There is the possibility that parents in Pakistan presented a socially desirable response to this question (e.g., different survey approaches or the enumerator teams or socio-cultural norms may have resulted in caregivers from Pakistan providing the "expected" response).The Wealth Index (WI) is used as a proxy indicator to depict household level wealth in the article.To construct the Wealth Index, we used a selected set of indicators in the dataset that allowed us to understand the level of wealth of the household (i.e., access to electricity, radio, television, landline phone, refrigerator/freezer, air cooler/conditioner, running water, gas stove, uninterrupted power supply (UPS), WiFi connection, mobile phone, computer, motorcycle or scooter, and car, truck, or tractor.All the selected indicators were converted into binary variables; 0 = no 1 = yes.For constructing the Wealth Index, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was used with the above variables and the output was recoded into a categorical variable (i.e., wealth quartiles (poorest, poor, rich, richest) using the xtile command in stata). c Parents were asked if they had engaged in early literacy (naming objects or animals, drawing or coloring things, and practicing writing) and early numeracy (naming shapes and colors, comparing size, and counting objects) activities with the child during school closures.
This study has also attempted to identify the factors or variables associated with parents and other family members who did and did not provide learning support to their children during the school closure necessitated by the pandemic.Table 4 presents demographic characteristics of respondents by experience of providing home-based learning for children during school closures for Ethiopia and Pakistan.
The findings so far suggest that during the COVID−19 pandemic in 2020, not all preschool children in Ethiopia were supported through caregiver engagement in their homes.In the case of Ethiopia, there is no statistically significant association between the proportion of caregivers by literacy level and home-based learning support provided to preschool children (X 2 = 1.098, df = 1, p > .05),although about 52% were literate caregivers.In the case of Pakistan, on the other hand, almost 95.7% of the  literate parents reported providing learning support to their children as compared to 85.5% of illiterate parents providing support and this difference is statistically significant.Being literate did appear to improve the likelihood of engaging children in learning activities in Pakistan, though this does not appear to be the case in Ethiopia.
We also assessed whether home-based support favored male or female preschoolers and the findings suggest that parents in Ethiopia engage on an equal basis with children regardless of gender.In Pakistan, findings suggest more girls received support from their parents in terms of academic engagement during the school closures, compared to boys (54% girls as compared to 47% boys), and the results are statistically significant (X 2 = 15.783,df = 1, p < .001).We have not presented the findings of the analysis based on gender of the caregiver, as it did not yield significant results for either of the two countries.In Ethiopia, the respondents were mothers for the majority of the children (over 99%).In the case of Pakistan, while 35% of the respondents were mothers and 65% were fathers, the difference in support by caregiver gender in Pakistan was not significant.
With job losses and the resultant social and economic turmoil, the pandemic sharply impacted the lives of many, especially the most marginalized.It is worth noting that while the pandemic resulted in school closures and lockdowns globally, countries adopted differential measures based on government responses.Ethiopia, for example, initiated a complete lockdown, with no teachers or children being able to come to schools).Pakistan adopted a more "hybrid" approach, whereby schools re-opened in January 2021 for secondary and middle-school students and pre-primary and primary classes were allowed to come two days a week.In Ethiopia, about 76% of the caregivers/parents said their household income was reduced due to the lockdown.However, there was no statistically significant association between the proportions of caregivers by the status of declined household income and home-based learning support provided to preschool children (X 2 = 1.209, df = 1, p > .05).In Pakistan, 26% of the respondents reported that they had run out of food due to the lockdown.
The type of engagement of caregivers was also assessed among those who did and did not provide home-based learning support.The results are presented in Table 5.
In the case of Ethiopia, about 74% of the respondents said they played with their child more often than they used to before the school closure due to the pandemic.A significantly lower proportion of the caregivers who were not engaged in supporting their children's learning activities at home also reported that they were not engaged in play-based activities (X 2 = 16.47,df = 1, p < .05;(AOR = 2.39, 95% CI: 1.56, 3.66)).This means that the lockdown created an opportunity for parents and children to spend time together; even then, those who were engaged in academically supporting their children were also more likely to engage in play-based activities.In the case of Pakistan, about 87% of the respondents said they played with their child during the last 15 days.This was found to be significantly higher among those caregivers who reportedly engaged in providing academic support to their children at home (92.9%) than those who did not (7.1%)(X 2 = 227.11,df = 1, p < .05).
With regard to reading books or looking at picture books with the child in Ethiopia, it was found that about 40% of the caregivers did so more often than they used to do before the pandemic.This was found to be significantly higher among those caregivers who were engaged in providing academic learning to their children at home (61.3%) than those who were not (38.7%)(X 2 = 24.25,df = 1, p < .05;(AOR = 2.539, 95% CI: 1.75, 3.69)).In other words, those who said they increased the time spent reading books or picture books were 2.539 times more likely to be engaged in supporting the academic learning activities of their preschool children than those caregivers who did not read books for their children.In the case of Pakistan, about 91% of the caregivers reported to have read books to their child during the last 15 days.This was found to be significantly higher among those caregivers who were engaged in providing academic learning to their children at home (93.6%) than those who were not (6.4%)(X 2 = 473.77,df = 1, p < .05).
About 54% of the respondents from Ethiopia said that they were telling stories to preschool children at home more often than they used to before the pandemic.The proportion of these parents was higher among those who were engaged in supporting academic learning activities of preschoolers at home (X 2 = 12.09, df = 1, p < .05;(AOR = 1.904, 95% CI: 1.32, 2.74)).In the case of Pakistan, telling stories, during the last 15 days, was reported by 87% of the respondents and the proportion of parents was higher among those who were engaged in supporting academic learning activities of their children at home.
In the case of Ethiopia, about 40% of the caregiver respondents reported singing songs, including lullabies, to or with the child more often than they used to before the pandemic, and this was proportionally higher among those engaged in supporting academic learning of their preschool child at home (X 2 = 5.37, df = 1, p < .05;(AOR = 1.541, 95% CI: 1.07, 2.22)).In the case of Pakistan, singing songs or lullabies, during the last 15 days, was reported by 82% of the respondents and the results are statistically significant.

Did schools or providers support caregivers/parents for child learning during the pandemic in Ethiopia and Pakistan?
School support to parents during home-based learning of preschool children was minimal in Ethiopia.About 10% of the caregiver respondents said they had a contact with O-Class teacher or school principal during school closures in Ethiopia (Figure 3).In Pakistan, on the other hand, over 80% of the caregivers responded that they had interactions with teachers during school closures.This stark contrast is likely due to the approach followed by the countries in re-opening the schools; Ethiopia followed a complete lockdown for several months, while Pakistan allowed all schools (including pre-primary) to operate in a hybrid mode after a few months of complete lockdown.The difference in school support cannot be linked to whether the child was going to a fee-paying (private) or government school because the samples were purely drawn from children enrolled in government schools.Interestingly, however, when teacher respondents were asked about whether they had been in contact with parents, their responses were markedly different from caregivers; in Pakistan, 38.5% of the teachers reported having been in contact with parents during school closures, while 33.3% reported doing so in Ethiopia.In the case of Pakistan, since the responding parents and teachers both tend to be from the same (small) villages, it is possible that parents may have considered their everyday informal meetups with the teachers as well when responding to this question, whereas the teachers only accounted for the official meetings when responding to the question.
In terms of headteacher interactions with parents, in Pakistan a large majority (97%) of the sampled head teachers 22 reported having contacted parents/caregivers of children in their schools, 23 with over half of them (54.3%)indicating reaching out to caregivers at least once a week and the most commonly used means of communication being phone calls (74%) or WhatsApp messages (11.3%).
Data from Ethiopia asked headteachers 24 to specifically note their interactions with parents of O-Class students, with 52.1% of the headteachers reporting interacting with caregivers of children in these classes during school closures.Unlike Pakistan, Ethiopian headteachers reported resorting to face-to-face interactions (68%) more often than text messages or phone calls.The data from Ethiopia also allow us to explore the nature of interactions reported by headteachers with caregivers/parents, with a large percentage of school heads reporting sharing information about handwashing, physical distancing, and mask wearing (88%).Information sharing by headteachers on child learning was more limited; for example, 36% headteachers reported sharing information with parents on home-based learning using picture or story books and 16% reported sharing information on learning at home though songs and games.This suggests that the focus of the interactions between parents and headteachers was on the maintenance of hygiene and keeping children and families safe during the pandemic while learning took a somewhat backstage position during these challenging times.What types of learning modalities were used by caregivers/parents to support child learning at home?
This section of the study focuses on the types of learning modalities used by parents to support child learning at home during the pandemic in Ethiopia and Pakistan.Figure 4 notes that a large percentage of parents in Pakistan used material in the print form (35%) and radio/TV (33%) to continue their child's education at home, whereas 4% and 11% of the parents reported depending on SMS and computer/smartphone/tablet, respectively.This suggests that very few parents in Pakistan were accessing more high-tech solutions for learning continuity for their young children.
In Ethiopia, on the other hand, findings (Figure 5) suggest that a majority of children did not get involved with any particular method of distance learning (53%) to engage with young children.Around 15% of the caregivers/parents reportedly used tech-enabled modes like radio/TV/online or mobile-based learning Apps, whereas 32% reported their children being dependent on other more non-technology based options, such as reading books, carrying out assignment projects, and/or having sessions with a tutor.Some differences in the use of technology and learning modalities across the two contexts may reflect the more limited availability of mobile data and access to the internet and applications in Ethiopia, especially as a civil war also broke out in the Tigray/Amhara regions during November 2020.Pakistan also had a far more extensive and quicker roll-out of TV and free/cheap online and distance learning solutions, partly reflecting its more advanced status as a LMIC as compared to Ethiopia.
A large percentage of girls were not utilizing any particular method for distance learning compared to boys in Pakistan (18.3% vs. 11.8%).For the girls who were shown to be engaging with distance learning, material in print was the most prevalent mode (34.3%).Contrasting to the situation in Punjab (Pakistan), a comparatively higher percentage of boys were not using any methods of distance learning in Ethiopia (54% vs. 52.7%).Some of the non-tech methods (book reading/assignments completion and/or tutor sessions) continue to be most prevalent regardless of the gender of the child, with 33.6% of girls and 29.7% of boys using them.

Did the socio-economic status of the family influence the mode of learning used?
Arguably, the wealth status of a child can be an important determinant of their engagement with specific modes of learning.Not surprisingly, Figure 6 illustrates that the usage of high-tech options increased with an increase in the wealth status of the households in Pakistan.Forty percent of the parents in the "richest" quartile were reportedly using a computer/smartphone/tablet to continue their child's learning at home, compared to only 4% in quartile 3 and none in quartile 1 and 2 in Pakistan (the poorest 25% and the poor 25-50%).
Figure 7 depicts the modes of learning used by children by wealth quartile in Ethiopia.As in Pakistan, the figure suggests that an increase in the wealth status of a household is commensurate with an increased utilization of options that are tech-enabled for distance learning, like radio/TV/online or mobile-based learning for distance learning.Almost 30% of the children from the "richest" socioeconomic status (4th quartile) were reportedly using radio/TV/online or mobile learning apps, compared to only 11% in quartile 2 and 6% in the poorest quartile (i.e., among the poorest 25% of the sample).
There were also intersections between the choice of mode of learning and parents', specifically mothers', own literacy status.Of those mothers in Pakistan who had reportedly chosen the highesttech options (computers/smartphones/tablets) to engage with their child's learning at home, 73% were literate.Of those who had not used any form of distance learning, 79% reported being illiterate.Only  21% of literate mothers reported not engaging with any form of distance learning for their young children in Pakistan (Figure 8).In Ethiopia (Figure 9), of those mothers who had reportedly chosen higher-tech options to engage with their child's learning at home, 53% were literate.Those who had relied on reading books/ assignments from school or meetings with lesson teacher, 57% were reportedly literate.A large percentage of literate mothers did not use any form of distance learning in Ethiopia (49%) as compared to Pakistan (21%).
In summary, there are some clear cross-country differences in the use of modes of learning and clear differences based on the socioeconomic status of the child's household.While a large percentage of young children in Ethiopia (over 53%) did not appear to be using any distance learning during the pandemic, this was in sharp contrast to what caregivers reported in Pakistan.In Pakistan, almost 80% of the children sampled were using some form of distance learning during the pandemic according to their caregivers.The use of more high-tech forms of distance education was prevalent among the richer households.There were also intersections between the choice of mode of learning and parents', specifically mothers', own literacy status.Of those mothers who had reportedly chosen the highest-tech options (computers/smartphones/tablets) to engage with their child's learning at home, a vast majority in Pakistan and over half of those sampled in Ethiopia were literate.

Conclusion
The COVID−19 pandemic has brought the issue of parental engagement to the forefront of the education policy agenda.The role of parents in improving learning outcomes of children was documented well before the pandemic.However, parental involvement became more pronounced when schools had to transition to home instruction for millions of children during school closures.Emerging evidence highlights that the opportunities available for online teaching and learning remained unequal across different contexts.Households have faced difficulties in supporting children's learning at home, with striking disparities between urban and rural, and the poorest and richest households.This study focuses on the degree of engagement of parents of preschool children and the modes of learning they used in Ethiopia and Pakistan in supporting their children in learning at home during school closures and disruptions caused by the COVID−19 pandemic.Evidence from our study hints at the following realities.First, there is a high uptake of play-based learning among parents in both contexts.However, in terms of academic engagement, only about half of the children enrolled in O-classes in Ethiopia received academic learning support from their caregivers during school closures.This finding resonates with the widespread observation during the pandemic that parents and governments generally prioritized older children, typically those in years facing high-stakes exams, assuming that younger children would somehow catch up.In reality, this could have contributed further to the foundational learning crisis that we are now witnessing.These findings contrast somewhat in Pakistan, where a larger percentage of caregivers (over 88%) were reportedly engaged in extending academic support to their children.However, in both contexts, parental literacy rates remain low and doubt exists about the extent to which parents would have been able to support deeper learning.Providing more tailored support to parents in both contexts through communitybased sessions or mothers' groups could be a useful means of targeting child learning.Lessons can also be learned for future crises to ensure that early years don't fall under the radar.
This study has also shown that children in early years are less likely to utilize technology for education.The majority of children in Ethiopia were not using any mode for distance learning, in contrast to Pakistan where the majority of the children were using either printed material and/or radio/TV to continue their education during the school closures.This research has highlighted the challenges for learning faced by children and their caregivers in two resource-poor contexts.A key lesson is for policymakers and service providers (state and non-state) to ensure that parents of young children have access to printed learning materials that they can use from home.However, simply having access to printed materials without associated support and training of caregivers is not enough.In both contexts where parental literacy rates are very low and where access to radio/TV may be limited, there is a need for policymakers to consider ways in which caregivers can be appropriately trained and supported.
Educational television, mobile phone-learning, and online learning can be used in combination to help ensure continuity of learning for children in remote areas and urban slums, with the caveat that many marginalized families may not have access to such means of learning.The two-country study highlights possibilities in bridging the perceived home-school divide as a positive trend for more holistic approaches within ECE systems with strong emergent evidence on active parental/caregiver engagement to support children's early learning through play.
Finally, the findings have shown the importance of ensuring all teachers have access to timely information and guidance to support students and parents with learning.ECCE professionals and workforce have been and always will be at the core of any effective response to the pandemic; therefore, any interventions developed to support distance education should include a robust, wellcoordinated, and iterative communication plan.The exchange of information between parents and teachers, as reported in the study, has been focused on health and hygiene, rather than learning and development.Therefore, adequate training and support materials should be made available to teachers and school staff to ensure they can effectively play their role in delivering remote education services.

Notes
1. Caregivers are defined in this study as any individual who provides for the needs of children; they could be parents, elder siblings, extended family members, and / or community members.2. https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/40-million-children-miss-out-early-education-critical-pre-school-yeardue-covid−19.3. https://www.ukfiet.org/2020/implications-of-covid−19-for-pre-primary-education-in-ethiopia-perspectives-ofparents-and-caregivers/.4. In this article, remote learning in the early years refers to all learning carried out in the home or community outside formal learning centers.This learning can be facilitated by caregivers with or without specialized input.

Figure 4 .Figure 5 .
Figure 4. Mode of learning used by caregivers to support learning at home -Pakistan.

Figure 6 .
Figure 6.Mode of learning by wealth quartile -Pakistan.
/Online or Mobile Learning Apps

Table 1 .
School closures and reopening in study countries.

Table 2 .
COVID-19 survey methods in Ethiopia and Pakistan.
a The exact question in the survey administered to caregivers: Has [index child]

Table 4 .
Demographic characteristics of caregiver respondents by experience of providing home-based academic learning support to children during school closures, Ethiopia and Pakistan.Was [index child] engaged in academic activities at home during school closure due to the coronavirus crisis?

Table 5 .
Child engagement in academic learning at home with the support of household members, Ethiopia and Pakistan.Was [index child] engaged in academic activities at home during school closure due to the coronavirus crisis?