* Author: Dr. K Ranju
Introduction
GCC migrants’ children, born in GCC Countries and migrated, are very much like domesticated parrots. Weakened health networks and disturbed health services have a direct impact on the well-being of children and young people, on parents’ work and income reductions, disrupted entry to education and limits on transport and mobility. Many whose lives are still characterised by insecurity would be further impacted. According to the UN report, in 2019, some 33 million children, including those who have been forcefully displaced, lived outside their country of birth (Global Trends Forced Displacement in 2019-UNHRC). Worldwide, 52% of migrant children and over 90% of refugee children are residing in countries with low and medium wages, with health services overloaded and long-term under capacity. GCC countries have developed education programs to support the educational needs of the children of migrants to encourage economic migrants. They depend on private schools, though, where access and efficiency are related to the willingness of an individual to pay tuition. The bulk of students in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar today are migrants, including a large number of students in the other four GCC nations.
Migrant children who have faced difficulties in navigating regular school programs or worldwide online materials and remote classes are best represented as displaced learners. The pandemic has impacted 1.5 billion student schools worldwide and is expected to worsen the vulnerabilities of millions of migrant and homeless learners worldwide (UNICEF data 2020). They’re at risk of slipping further behind in education. And provided that economic downturns usually contribute to more children being confined between the four walls and their computer screens, the condition has deteriorated. Increasing global deaths indicate that individual migrants and migrant children would be orphaned and exposed to child welfare abuses. Migrant and displaced children’s protection and stability are further undermined as employment and wages are lost. Lockdowns, lack of jobs, and small-scale confinement exacerbate risks to children’s welfare and well-being. Children from migrants and displaced families are less likely to have extended families around for support, forcing many to fend for themselves.
In all GCC industries, schooling was among the least equipped for disruptions such as COVID-19 and perhaps the most impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. In virtually no warning, a well-established paradigm of in-person schooling was compelled to move entirely online, sending 2.75 million children home (OECD,2020). A direct result of which is a possibility of decreasing long-term learning standards, coupled with a possible rise in children’s digital literacy deficit. Most GCC education ministries are now working hard to set the right conditions to update online learning, teaching, and materials. However, considering continuing disruptions to in-person learning in the future, policymakers should take longer-term steps to strengthen online learning by improving digital infrastructure and ensuring universal access to online services. Most GCC education ministries are now working hard to set the right conditions to update online learning, teaching, and materials. However, considering continuing disruptions to in-person learning in the future, policymakers should take longer-term steps to strengthen online learning by improving digital infrastructure and ensuring universal access to online services.
Research Methodology
The research area focused on migrants children in GCC countries. The study excluded migrant children in hostels. Individual country studies were undertaken in Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and UAE from February 2020 to September 2020 and developed a comprehensive questionnaire to 10 families in each country, having migrant kids two or more and all were born in GCC or migrated to GCC in as young as two years old. The assessment was made on the below aspects:
- Disruptions to education, limited access to online/ home learning, delayed solutions for sustainable education
- Cybersecurity and data protection
- Increased time at home for parents and children, increased childcare needs.
- Closure of child-friendly spaces, parks and play areas
The appraisal is based on informal interviews. While sparsely available, data were obtained from the Statistical Department; data were obtained basically from the migrant children interactions only. There are certain limitations to this analysis. Firstly, a face-to-face interview was omitted in the face of health threats, though self-reporting has some drawbacks relative to face-to-face interviews. Secondly, the effectiveness of psychiatric facilities did not monitor as a transversal analysis.
Objective
According to WHO, statistics show that children under the age of 18 constitute around 8.5% of confirmed cases, with comparatively few deaths compared to other age ranges and typically moderate illness. Critical illness was established, however. Children’s role in transmission isn’t yet well known. To date, few outbreaks were recorded affecting children or classrooms. However, the small number of outbreaks reported by teaching or related staff to date indicate minimal dissemination of COVID-19 in educational settings. Since children typically have milder sickness with fewer symptoms, cases often go unnoticed. Importantly, early research results indicate adolescent infection rates could be higher than in younger children.
The initial lockdown surge in the early part of this year prompted educators to switch online education quickly. While this broad-based change to digital approaches has been primarily reactive, it has also intensified an ongoing transition to a more blended and technologically focused approach. Pandemic COVID-19 prompted colleges and universities to shut and return students home. Learning experienced a change from conventional to more virtual application. This fact will prove to help bridge the digital divide, pushing countries to find immediate solutions and technologies that will have a long-term effect on the education industry. The transition to online learning, though, was not necessarily frictionless. Access to online learning in many private schools was based on paying term fees. Due to the coronavirus crisis, some families under economic pressure find it difficult to compensate. School operators announced that the move to e-learning required higher running expenses – teachers’ digital preparation and buying e-learning platform licenses. This was in addition to the effect on children from traditional school-based learning to home-based learning. This article necessarily aims to figure out certain pandemic socio-mental effects on children because of the education system transition.
Protection of data, confidentiality and cybercrime
Data is the lifeblood of the strategic planning efforts of every higher education institution and offers proof of success and a basis for new programs. In reaction to the pandemic of COVID-19, colleges and universities rely extensively on modern instruments and remote approaches to gather diverse data points on their stakeholders. This abundance of data is a double-edged sword: on the one hand, some data applications optimise the student experience; on the other, it is easy to use personal information unethically, ill-informed or even criminally. The pandemic brought most analysts to recognise that existing data security regulations in most GCC countries are obsolete and need to be updated to match themselves with an ever-developing industry. With the emergence of the pandemic and when the schooling system for many institutions is expected to be entirely or partly distant, education only enhanced the vital importance of ensuring adequate data protection and governance policies and protocols. And as directions and operations in individuals resume, new technologies and data sets remain relevant online distribution and related.
Online learning has voiced doubts about how to secure students’ confidential records, the safety of children and the possibility of exposing to cybercrime. Distance learning has pushed schools to use new technology and programs to ensure continuity of schooling. These online resources are used by students to submit learning assignments, enrol in events and interact with other students. Schools are required to monitor their students and teachers to ensure good student discipline and practical education. Such control and use of different systems also include the processing, storing and exchange of personal information. Many GCC countries have Data Protection Regulators where, like others, cyber-based data protection regulations apply. However, school officials’ indifference and inadequate understanding of such laws also risk children’s education online. Educators and parents should be familiar with how the legislation will safeguard student data. The mere collecting of consent from parents to store their children’s personal data and the transparency of such data collection practices are not the primary concern of the school administrators but should ensure that all such data are kept securely and appropriately in order to deter illegal and unauthorised infringements.
Pandemic has given bad actors and hackers a positive life with the exposure of big internet users. Cyber analysts identified a major uptick in e-mail compromising to extortion and ransomware. Scammers take advantage of COVID anxiety by sending phishing e-mails with demands for donations and offering help from credible sources. The risk of student and teacher spoofing is increased due to relaxed controls. Video conferencing applications have been increasingly targeted in contrast. The standard checks and best practices should also remind students and instructors, including not clicking on suspicious links or providing information to unknown third parties. There is a risk of misconduct, cyberbullying, and the distribution of false information and defamatory opinions through social media networks to reach students online. Many parents were also afraid that children would get engaged in porn movies and violent short films. Increased ads on children’s websites scare parents in particular, and the government should find urgent action to curb those intruders.
As classrooms shut down and moved online, schools often saw a shift in the forms of cybersecurity incidents. This is primarily because the students and teachers using software vary from those they used previously. Teachers rely on video conferencing and cloud apps to take classes from home, and students use the same applications to remain in solitude with peers and classmates. Just after remote learning has begun, schools and students have witnessed events where unauthorised persons have hijacked simulated classrooms to create chaos and mayhem. Another example is teachers who record and share their lessons online without understanding the repercussions. Social networking sites are full of virtual class pictures of students and personal material from inside homes. This poses an immense cybersecurity danger as cyber attackers use this information to perform social engineering attacks and obtain access to school accounts. In addition, publishing class records and lessons online is a data privacy risk as schools are responsible for. It is time for IT providers to fill the holes, track the acquisition of new cloud applications and stable and confidential sensitive school data.
Socio-Economic impacts
The pandemic has had unintended and unparalleled effects on people’s lives in every corner of the globe, affecting millions of people regardless of rights and income, socioeconomic and legal circumstances, faith, ethnicity, traditions, expertise, ethnicity, sex and era. The GCC countries are no different, well-known for their thriving economy and bustling metropolis. The consequences of COVID-19 were felt globally by the most vulnerable sections of the population in various ways as a result of intrinsic interventions and immediate exposure to the health, economic and social effects of the pandemic. The GCC countries have disadvantaged segments of the population: women who are most prone to domestic violence, girls, teens and young people who have lost access to group education and leisure, refugees who have lost their livelihoods, dependent families who have lost funds and those with existing medical conditions who need healthcare and whatnot, and it made a clean sweep of all sectors.
Although most colleges and institutions of higher education have moved to remote learning, many students have been left behind by airports and frontier closures. In addition, many faced higher housing costs from closing schools, as well as often a scarcity of support networks. As international students are typically not required to work full-time, many revert to savings or rely on bursaries and family support that can be affected by COVID-19 economic crisis. 22 per cent of GCC migrant communities have families with them and children are taught. Most of them rely on their parents’ only income without any bursaries, and high school fees added to the pandemic’s budget.
Children are not the face of this pandemic, but risk being its biggest victims. Isolation and social distance situations, particularly in the early years, may have a devastating effect on children’s lives. The burden on parents and carers will also negatively influence parental activities. This is further intensified by closing the schools, given the possibility of declines in the quality of education, particularly in special needs education, which involves individual coaching and close observation. Entry to schooling for migrant children is not always assured, and the COVID-19 crisis aggravated this situation. Equally significant are the limits on social engagement and its effect on the general well-being and wellbeing of children as school systems are increasingly incorporating telecommunications technology in their education and learning opportunities.
Digital solutions are constantly relied on to satisfy and distance social policy to adapt to these challenges. These interactive solutions, however, face an intrinsic danger of transforming social human nature and culture. It is, therefore, necessary to encourage, incorporate and innovative cultural engagement, endorse policies that invest in cultural development and digital dissemination channels, as well as awards and promotional support for creative and cultural output.
Gap in Education
The GCC regarded education as a critical factor in sustainable growth. As regional governments pursued economic diversification in an effort to leverage non-oil-based sectors and increase knowledge-based economies, higher education was seen as a priority. Regional education programs aim not only to leverage the potential of the youth population of the GCC – predicted to grow to 65 million by 2030 – but also to educate an entire generation of professionals with excellent technological skills, effectively bridging the gap between current skills and those needed by employers in the future.
The GCC countries, on the other hand, enjoy more robust emergency response systems due to their unwavering economies, extensive internet access, and established education frameworks. Despite the overall response, there is still a strong difference in preparedness and crisis management skills between the various education services, despite government and private sector efforts that sought to ensure that most programs were ready to migrate to remote teaching. Although many schools and universities have found ways to use new or existing platforms to communicate with and continue with their students, others have lacked the requisite technical resources and platforms for teacher-student interaction. Kuwait, for instance, froze the academic year for the public sector, while the private sector stayed open because it was able to retain remote services. This inequity ignited a public discussion through Kuwait’s social media sites, in which students asked to resume their studies remotely. Unlike Kuwait, many of Qatar’s public and private organisations already had learning networks to meet the needs of remote education. The remaining education providers either purchased or developed online facilities and forums to connect their teachers and students, thereby benefiting from powerful internet access and government and community support. Despite this rapid response, however, there was still uncertainty and concern across social media about student well-being, skills growth, evaluation, and the next academic year. Remote education, although unable to replace face-to-face teaching, did reasonably well in the case of an emergency, but only where equipment and services existed, to the advantage of the privileged.
The transition to innovation and sustainable development required near-and long-term investment in human capital, infrastructure and technology to keep up with the pace of the scientific and technological revolution. To this end, regional governments have made concerted efforts to achieve qualitative and quantitative growth in the higher education sector. Education is one of the industries that has undergone major transformations, mostly due to the internationalisation of higher education, along with countries that are transforming the market, so that they are online with global trends and best practices. Global revolution, digital advances and a change in customer needs have not only created millions of job openings but have also increased the demand for technical and cross-functional skills. Education is not only a fundamental human right. It is an enabling right with a clear effect on the enforcement of all other human rights. It is a global common good and a key driver of change across all 17 Sustainable Development Goals as a framework for a just, fair, equitable and peaceful society. Peace, stable and efficient economies cannot be sustained when education systems crumble.
Behavioural Changes
School offers order and routine for students’ lives. Following the habit of waking up at a particular time, wearing a uniform and going to school at a fixed time and returning home at a specific time, gives them a sense of normality in their lives. The predictability of understanding that the second-period science class follows the first-period mathematics class helps students’ brains to concentrate on academic material. The standards for conduct and academic success are well known and well accepted. As schools switched to online students, they lost their structure and routine. Many get home with task bundles to complete, so it’s up to them to determine when and in what order they’re going to complete assignments. At first, this more incredible amount of independence and flexibility feels good – and then falls behind to slip over to be distracted by other more attractive choices (Netflix, video games, PS4, social media) or to get bored.
For most students, school is not only about academics, but also about social experiences. A lot of friendships started by sitting next to each other in the classroom. The highlight of a student’s day might be walking down a particular corridor during the break because that’s when they can confidently expect to see the person they’re crushing or getting applause from their teachers for scoring good marks that will boost their self-confidence. Groups of friends have lunch every day. Through their experience with teachers and other school staff, young people learn how to communicate with non-family authority figures. In the classrooms and corridors of their school, young people are exposed to a range of different cultures, backgrounds and ways of life that may be different from their own homes.
School closures have also impacted extracurricular events. Many students enjoy participating in athletics, music, school games, robotics and several other events. Participation in these programs allows students to become a more promising candidate to schools, universities and prospective employers. More specifically, involvement in these events is an integral part of the identity of students. Students who are confined at home with their parents because of COVID-19 may feel more stressed and anxious. Sprang and Silman (2013) show that children who have been isolated or quarantined during a pandemic are more likely to suffer from acute stress disorder, adjustment disorder, and grief. Such adverse psychological factors in turn, may have a detrimental effect on learning (Kuban and Steele 2011).
The school climate is known for its peer-related effects that impact achievement. It can create essential positive exteriorities by being in a classroom and therefore getting the ability to communicate with classmates. There are several different channels for peer impact. Students will instruct and improve each other. The high performance of classmates will inspire the student to work harder (through competition or social influence). Classroom activities also play a crucial role in helping students develop social skills which have significant effects on their personal and occupational growth in the future (Goodman et al. 2015). To establish positive freedom, independence and a sense of identity, communicating with teachers and other students is essential. It also strengthens the capacity of students to work collaboratively and efficiently in groups. There is strong evidence that social competences are linked positively to cognitive competences and school success (Malecki and Elliot 2002; Cunha and Heckman 2007).
Key findings
• Coronavirus poses health vulnerabilities for a group of children who have not previously missed school due to illness. 57% of children confirmed to have a disease that makes them vulnerable to coronavirus did not yet miss school due to their condition.
• Health issues about coronavirus were critical reasons for non-attendance. The most common explanation given was the risk that a healthy child would contract coronavirus and become sick. The second most common reason was the risk that a household member would catch coronavirus from the child.
• Mental health problems that arose or developed during the pandemic were a cause for 2 per cent of all children in the study to struggle.
• Children from wealthy families are more likely to go back to school in person. The data indicate a high degree of confidence that a more significant percentage of children from higher socio-economic groups (55 per cent) expect to attend school than those from lower socio-economic groups (45 per cent).
• Prior or pre-existing health problems are a source of concern for attending school. Six per cent of children confirmed to have a significant medical problem or disease that has forced them to miss school in the past.
• Due to the pandemic, 76% of parents and caregivers fear children may be lonely for some time, often, or all of the time.
References
- UNICEF East Asia and Pacific Region – Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Situation Report N. 15 (Reporting Period: 14 November – 11 December 2020)
- ILO COVID-19: Guidance for labour statistics data collection
- Del Rio C, Malani PN. COVID‐19—new insights on a rapidly changing epidemic. JAMA. 2020; 323: 1339‐ 1340. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.3072
- 2 World Health Organization (WHO). WHO announces COVID‐19 outbreak a pandemic. WHO; 2020.
- Basbous M, Al‐Jadiry M, Belgaumi A, et al. Cancer care in the Middle East, North Africa, and West/Central Asia: a snapshot across five countries from the POEM network.
- World Health Organization (WHO) Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19). Situation Report‐82. WHO; 2020. Accessed April 27, 2020.
- UNICEF: Impact of COVID-19 on Children in the Middle East and North Africa Report
The GCC Countries Face COVID-19 A Report which Clarifies the Efforts of the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries to Stop the Spread of COVID-19 and Limit the Expected Negative Economic Effects on the Countries of the Gulf Region
* Dr. K. Ranju Rangan, independent researcher and an HR professional from Qatar, is the founder of Exodus Research. In the GCC countries, he was actively involved in labor migration issues of South-East Asians.