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COVID-19 pandemic policies overlooked long-term needs of children

27 June 2023 | Story Department of Communication and Marketing | Photo Charl Devenish

Dr Abraham Matamanda and Prof Lochner Marais — UFS researchers, Dr Abraham R Matamanda, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Geography, and Prof Lochner Marais, Head of the UFS Centre for Development Support, collaborated with researchers in the UK and Brazil on a study on the impact of COVID-19 on children and young people. The study is part of the international PANEX-Youth research project.

Researchers from South Africa, the UK, and Brazil recently conducted a study on the impact of COVID-19 on children and young people, particularly those from disadvantaged households. Their research highlights that the pandemic has deepened existing inequalities, with children and young people’s voices and needs not being considered in policy decisions.

The study conducted by researchers from the University of the Free State (UFS) and the University of Fort Hare in South Africa; the University College London, the University of Birmingham, and Nottingham Trent University in the UK; and the University of São Paulo in Brazil, found that pandemic policy decisions largely ignored young people’s needs, resulting in long-term losses.

Educational inequalities

The report, titled International and National Overviews of the impact of COVID-19 on Education, Food and Play/Leisure and Related Adaptations, outlines how slow government action and policy gaps in efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19 have had a negative impact on children and young people’s health and welfare.

South Africa has been one of the countries hardest hit by COVID-19, and the study shows that due to social isolation and economic disruption caused by lockdowns, children and young people’s education has been stunted, their access to nutritious food has been reduced, and their ability to develop socially through play has been significantly restricted. The impact was worst for those living in disadvantaged poor households.

The study, which is part of the first stage of the PANEX-Youth research project, is divided into two volumes: the ‘Long Report’, highlighting the wider impact of the pandemic on children across the world, while the ‘Short Report’ drills down on the impact on three countries, namely the UK, South Africa, and Brazil.

Further insights from the study show that the digital divide has compounded educational inequalities as education has moved online during the pandemic, with households and regions with insufficient internet access falling behind. Collectively, and combined with the continuing cost-of-living crisis, the researchers believe that these disadvantages are likely to have detrimental consequences for children and young people in the short and long term, with many not yet visible.

Future pandemic planning

The team – which includes UFS researchers, Dr Abraham R Matamanda, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Geography, and Prof Lochner Marais, Head of the UFS Centre for Development Support – expects that policy gaps during the pandemic will negatively impact young people’s professional life trajectories, healthy lifestyles, mental well-being, educational opportunities, and self-confidence.

The team put together five recommendations to ensure that children’s well-being is incorporated into any future pandemic planning. These suggestions include:

The need to keep children and young people at the centre of pandemic preparedness efforts.
More priority and attention given to the hidden voices and experiences of young people, and particularly those from monetary poor households.
Greater recognition that schools play an important, central role as life and care hubs.
Greater recognition of play and leisure as rights that are fundamental to children and young people’s development.
More structured and systemic responses to multiple dimensions of risk from local and national responses are recommended, based on a rigorous assessment of what worked and failed during the pandemic.

Adapting in the post-pandemic period

Prof Lauren Andres, Professor of Planning and Urban Transformations at the University College London – also the lead author of the report – said: “COVID-19 exposed and exacerbated inequalities that already existed prior to the pandemic. Children and young people’s voices and needs were not heard and accounted for. Our research shows that because of policy gaps and slow government action during the pandemic, disadvantaged children and young people are now facing serious consequences that could be with them for a long time, both here in the UK and around the world.”

According to Dr Matamanda, “The COVID-19 pandemic showed the lack of understanding of what children and young people need in their daily lives. During the pandemic, the rights of children and young people, especially play/leisure, accessing adequate food and education, seemed to be overlooked or least prioritised. This was evident from the slow and inconsistent COVID-19 government policies and strategies that failed to acknowledge the networks and value chains through which children and young people are supported. In this way, our research shows the gaps and inequalities created and widened among children and young people in South Africa, especially those from disadvantaged households who have now been left behind and are grappling to adapt in the post-pandemic period.”

Read the full report here: https://panexyouth.com/

News Archive

Historians must place African history on world stage – Dr Zeleza

2017-05-30

From the left: Panellists Rev Henry Jackson,
Prof Irikidzayi Manase and Arno Van Niekerk at a book
launch and panel discussion on Africa Day hosted by the
UFS Sasol Library.
Photo: Mamosa Makaya

“African historians must take seriously the challenge of placing African history in world history, and in the history of our species, Homo sapiens.”

With these words, Dr Paul Tiyambe Zeleza, Vice Chancellor of the United States International University-Africa in Nairobi, Kenya, stressed the continent’s challenge.

According to him the contest should continue to recover and reconstruct Africa’s long history. Liberating African knowledges can be done by: “Provincialising Europe that has monopolised universality, universalising Africa beyond its Eurocentric provincialisation, and engaging histories of other continents on their own terms.”

University celebrates Africa Month in various ways
Dr Zeleza delivered the ninth Africa Day Memorial Lecture, titled The Decolonisation of African Knowledges, at the University of the Free State (UFS). The lecture, hosted by the Centre for Africa Studies (CAS), took place on 24 May 2017 in the Equitas Auditorium on the Bloemfontein Campus and was one of the ways in which the UFS celebrated Africa Month.

Scholars should immerse themselves in these thoughts
Dr Zeleza focused on two issues, which he said were interconnected. They were the unfinished project of decolonising African knowledges and the continent's positioning in global knowledge production.

He said Africa’s scholars and students should “immerse themselves in the rich traditions of African social thought going back millennia”. According to him the continent’s research profile still remains weak in global terms.

“It is imperative that the various key stakeholders in African higher education from governments to the general public to parents, and to students, faculty, staff, and administrators in the academic institutions themselves, raise the value proposition of African higher education for 21st century African societies, economies, and polities.”

“Colonialism is associated with injustice
and inequality, but what happens when
our liberators become our oppressors?”

Library celebrates with panel discussion and book launch
The UFS Sasol Library celebrated Africa Day by presenting a book launch and panel discussion on 25 May 2017, on the pertinent and current political theme of land redistribution with a comparative basis of land invasions in Zimbabwe.

Prof Irikidzayi Manase discussed his book White Narratives: The Depiction of Post-2000 Land Invasions in Zimbabwe, accompanied by Rev Henry Jackson who wrote Another Farm in Africa. A perspective of the economic implications of land redistribution in South Africa was discussed by panellist Arno Van Niekerk: Senior Lecturer of Economics at the UFS Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences.

Inequality still an African problem
The content of the books are a stark reminder of the burning issues of inequality and loss of identity of those who lost their farms in Zimbabwe, a collection of memoirs by white farmers and their families. Rev Jackson gave a religious perspective on reconciliation, forgiveness and the question of land ownership, saying that healing of injustice begins with forgiveness of past transgressions.

Van Niekerk highlighted that while land issues were important, “social cohesion is affected by the economic decisions that will be made”. In closing, Prof Manase called for serious consideration of what the future may hold. “Colonialism is associated with injustice and inequality, but what happens when our liberators become our oppressors?”

The panel discussion was attended by staff and students of the university, and was lit up by robust discussions on possible historical and future solutions to the question of land, decolonisation and political power struggles in Southern Africa and lessons to be learned from Zimbabwe.

UFS celebrates Africa Month (24 May 2017)

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