CHINA
- Population: 1.4 billion
- Covid-19 deaths: 4,739
- Covid-19 cases: 90,869
- National lockdown: Local lockdowns only, but first was in Wuhan on 23 January 2020.
Smart Vision International Kindergarten in Shandong, China, closed from February until the end of May, although 20 per cent of children did not return until the start of the new school year in September.
‘Lots of parents asked their children to stay at home because they did not feel safe,’ explains owner and director Guo Hui. ‘There was a big fear of cases coming in from outside China. But now everyone seems to feel much happier.’
Parents are not allowed into the setting any more – teachers collect children from the gate, and both parents and teachers wear masks. Many of the children in the kindergarten also wear masks, although it is not compulsory.
‘I think very close to 100 per cent of people follow the rules in China,’ says Ms Guo. ‘They are really scared of the virus. I have not heard of anyone refusing to wear a mask. You feel very unsafe without one. The Government is very clear with the information it provides to families on how serious the virus is and how it could affect us all.’
While state nurseries received funding during lockdown, China’s private settings, such as Smart Vision, got minimal help from the Government, although mandatory monthly pension payments by staff were temporarily frozen. When the setting was closed, teachers provided online activities to families five days a week and came in to clean and disinfect the building. They were paid for their time, but the setting’s staff as a whole were paid only the legally mandated minimum monthly salary: an average of 40 per cent below their usual pay. As a result, two teachers have resigned, and several took up second jobs during lockdown – for example, delivering food to the vulnerable.
‘Private kindergartens are facing a very difficult time because we still have to pay rent but we are not getting fees and have not had much help from the Government,’ explains Ms Guo. ‘We have been trying to offer extra services to parents, like selling resources or asking our chef to prepare meals for our families, just to make some extra money.’
However, Ms Guo adds that there have been some positives to the situation.
‘It gives us all confidence to know that if we ever face something like this again, we will know what to do,’ she says.
‘The Government gives us very helpful, strict and detailed hygiene and cleaning procedures, and they regularly visit to check you are doing it correctly, so it has been good for us to make sure we are up to scratch. If you are not, you will be punished. That’s China!’
RUSSIA
- Population: 145.9 million
- Covid-19 deaths: 23,069
- Covid-19 cases: 1,332,824
- National lockdown: 30 March 2020
Romashka Kindergarten in Moscow usually has 270 children in attendance. In March, when Russia went into lockdown, the setting closed to all but the children of frontline workers, subsequently closing to everyone from May to July.
Although staff at the state-maintained nursery all received their full salaries during lockdown, Ekaterina Severina, a teacher at Romashka, says the mood at the nursery was not initially especially positive.
‘Of course, our parents were very unhappy when their children were told to stay at home, even those who were available to look after them in the day,’ she says. ‘And as staff we were all very scared for the health of our friends and family.’
After providing lessons by email for children to study at home, the setting reopened again in July, but in quite a different way. ‘Since the children have been back, we have noticed that many have fallen significantly behind in their studies and the levels of discipline are very low,’ Ms Severina says.
Teachers and parents must now wear masks and gloves, and all events at the setting have been cancelled until further notice. Children must step out of class to wash twice a day, while teachers disinfect the classroom and all the equipment. They also disinfect all the door handles every two hours.
Masks, gloves, disinfectant and hand sanitiser are provided to the nursery by the state in weekly deliveries.
‘Everyone feels very safe,’ Ms Severina explains. ‘As long as you stick to the hygiene and cleaning rules, there is nothing to worry about. We have been well provided for.’
Indeed, all the families enrolled have now returned to the nursery, except those who are experiencing cold or flu symptoms, in case they are infected with Covid-19.
‘We don’t have any parents who are particularly scared of the virus,’ Ms Severina says. ‘I am worried about my family’s health, of course, but everything has been done to make sure we feel safe at work and for the children to feel safe at nursery.’
Russia has been the first country to announce a vaccine for Covid-19, but Ms Severina does not believe there will be a long queue of people lining up for the medication.
‘They developed it much too fast,’ she says. ‘I certainly will not be getting vaccinated. I don’t trust it at all.’
USA
- Population: 331 million
- Covid-19 deaths: 216,872
- Covid-19 cases: 7,916,099
- National lockdown: State-by-state basis, but first was in California on 19 March 2020.
According to state laws, daycare settings in Texas were considered essential services and could stay open after lockdown was announced in March. However, Heather Thibodeaux, director of Happy Harbour Early Childhood Program in League City, Texas, decided to close until the new school year began in September.
‘We were on spring break anyway when we went into lockdown, and as no one knew where this was headed or what to expect, we decided to follow the other daycares in our local district and close for the rest of the year,’ she says. ‘It took us until July to come up with a policy we felt comfortable enough with to think about reopening.’
A Covid-19 policy was drafted and approved by nursery lawyers and its board, and was shared with other local settings.
The nursery has now introduced temperature checks at the door, one extra cleaning product, visors for staff at the gate and compulsory masks for parents at all times.
‘Once the children are in the building, we try to keep it pretty much as normal, though,’ says Ms Thibodeaux. ‘We are a very family-orientated setting and we wanted to maintain that atmosphere for the children. They need to be able to see faces for their development.’
Staff ran a series of Facebook Live events to explain their new procedures and approaches to parents.
‘We made it very clear that if they couldn’t handle hugs and high fives then we were not the school for them,’ Ms Thibodeaux says, although she notes that most families were happy to return.
The setting has suffered with enrolment, though, with just 67 per cent of new places taken up by the start of the school year compared with 100 per cent in previous years.
Several teachers have had their hours cut, and peripatetic music teachers and librarians have been let go, in part due to finances and in part the need to maintain Covid-secure bubbles.
For most other staff, however, it is business as usual. ‘We have staff with asthma and diabetes, and we asked them to check with their doctors whether they could come back,’ Ms Thibodeaux explains. ‘One decided to resign because her daughter is vulnerable, but other than that they all feel happy with our protocols. If teaching is in your heart, it is very hard to stay away from.’
She adds that some good has come from the pandemic. ‘We have been able to re-envision how things are done. We have become strictly automated for all paperwork and collect fees electronically rather than by cash or cheque. It has really allowed us to simplify.’
Ms Thibodeaux says the setting will be dependent on a grant from the $50 billion Child Care Stabilization Fund, promised as part of the Child Care Is Essential Act to help childcare providers through the pandemic. The act is still awaiting Senate approval.
‘We keep hoping the act will be passed,’ Ms Thibodeaux says. ‘We have had to buy hand sanitiser, thermometers, tablets and QR codes for registering the children at the door, and none of it is cheap. Even now, when we are up to 76 per cent registration, we are still way over our budget.’
SWEDEN
- Population: 10.1 million
- Covid-19 deaths: 5,907
- Covid-19 cases: 101,332
- National lockdown: none
With no official lockdown in Sweden, Klax Cosmos and Klax Friskus pre-schools in Johanneshov and Trångsund did not close at all. The group sizes have remained the same, but the children are now outside for more of the day, alternating with the group inside so as to keep children more separate.
Principal Maria Lennartsdotter says the experience has been very straightforward.
‘Sweden decided to wait as long as possible before any lockdown very much in order to avoid any negative impacts to more disadvantaged children. So when desk and office workers and everybody else who could was working from home, schools and pre-schools stayed open.
‘They eventually decided that high-schools should close and operate from a distance, but settings with smaller children should stay open. Problems with children being stuck at home in difficult home environments has also been much spoken about and aired in Sweden as a result of the pandemic, which I think can only be a good thing.’
She admits staff have struggled to deal with minor ailments in the setting. ‘It’s been a bit difficult for staff to judge and read symptoms. They have been forced to be harder than usual in their judgement of, for example, a runny nose or allergy. But overall I’m pleased with the information and the way the Government has communicated it to us. The clarity has helped me to feel confident passing on the advice and restrictions to our families.’
All staff meetings and training are now done online and all parent events and parties have been cancelled. All communication is done by email, rather than face to face.
With tighter hygiene practices now in place, Ms Lennartsdotter acknowledges the Swedish Government has not provided extra equipment, but says this has not been a problem for her settings. ‘We feel lucky and happy that we had much in storage, because I know other schools have had problems getting resources such as hand sanitiser,’ she explains.
Meanwhile, the children have been encouraged to get involved in the new approach. ‘We have taught the children to wash their hands for a longer time, between all the fingers and letting the soap foam up, and we wash our hands more often,‘ says Ms Lennartsdotter. ‘We involve the children in cleaning processes such as drying the tables, chairs and so on to increase awareness of the importance of cleanliness.’
Ms Lennartsdotter says that, overall, the mood in the country is far from pessimistic. ‘Of course it has been hard not being able to be part of culture and sports events, and the number of people we’ve lost is a tragedy. But as far as our pre-school goes, I can’t say anything specifically negative. I feel very hopeful about the future! My main concern is more to do with the environment and how we take care of our planet.’
Covid data based on Johns Hopkins statistics as of 15.10.2020, https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality