Early childhood education contingencies for sustaining learning during school closures: Lessons from preschool remote education home visits in Indonesia during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Maintaining kindergarten education amid emergency situations is difficult. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the difficulties faced by early childhood education institutions in ensuring that children continue education despite school closures and prolonged social isolation. The transition from in-classroom learning to remote learning, which was mostly online for older age groups, was especially complicated for younger pupils due to their nature and limited family resources. In contrast, numerous kindergartens in Indonesia initiated home visit programs that enabled children to learn face-to-face with their teachers and peers during the school closure periods. The purpose of this study was to examine how the home visit program for early childhood education was implemented and how teachers and parents viewed this emergency alternative to online learning. A qualitative case study was employed as a method of inquiry. Nine parents and four teachers from a single kindergarten in South Tangerang, a suburb of Jakarta, participated in this study. The data revealed the home visit program’s implementation involved the following measures: dividing children into small groups, a teacher visiting each group’s assigned home once or twice per week for 45–90 min, enforcing health measures, and giving daily activities for students to complete with their parents. Teachers stated that the home visit program was helpful but had significant faults. Among the benefits were the following: It helped children comprehend learning materials, piqued their interest, and served as a possible alternative due to a family’s lack of resources such as electricity, internet connectivity and quota, educators’ competency in implementing online learning, and parents limited or unavailable devices. Meanwhile, some disadvantages of home visits included the following: Parents felt obligated to entertain their children’s teachers and peers, some students were unable to study due to distance, additional time and energy was spent on media preparation and learning activities, and the risk of exposure to COVID-19 was increased. In the future, unexpected health hazards or other situations may occur. These findings indicate the need for early childhood education institutions to be more prepared, develop a strategy and adjust their instructional approaches to respond rapidly to changing circumstances when required.