Despite strong evidence of its importance to the welfare of children and societies, early childhood education has been comparatively neglected as a policy priority both before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper seeks to understand what factors have contributed to the relative lack of priority for early childhood education in distance learning and school reopening plans by applying a political prioritization framework to the pandemic context in 4 low- and middle-income countries: Ethiopia, Jamaica, Liberia, and Pakistan (Punjab Province). Some aspects of the pre-COVID-19 status quo which disfavored early childhood education have continued, including a lack of cohesive support from civil society and a greater focus by international partners on norm promotion and technical assistance than financing. In other respects, the pandemic put early childhood education at an even greater disadvantage. These include perceptions that early childhood education is less suited to distance delivery than other levels of education, concerns about young children's ability to comply with health protocols, and competition with high-stakes examinations for education ministries’ attention. Previous country experience with pandemics (in Liberia) and a strong coordinating entity (in Jamaica) were mitigating factors. These results point to an urgent need to elevate priority for early childhood education in more normal times and to capture the lessons of COVID-19 to improve the resilience of early childhood education in future crises.

尽管有充分证据表明幼儿教育对儿童和社会福祉的重要性，但在 COVID-19 大流行之前和期间，幼儿教育作为一项政策优先事项相对而言被忽视了。本文试图通过将政治优先框架应用于 4 个低收入和中等收入国家（埃塞俄比亚、牙买加、利比里亚和巴基斯坦（旁遮普省）。新冠肺炎 (COVID-19) 疫情之前的现状中，不利于幼儿教育的某些方面仍然存在，包括缺乏民间社会的凝聚力支持，以及国际合作伙伴更加注重规范推广和技术援助而不是融资。在其他方面，疫情使幼儿教育处于更加不利的境地。其中包括认为幼儿教育不如其他级别的教育适合远程教育，担心幼儿遵守健康协议的能力，以及与高风险的考试竞争以吸引教育部的关注。先前国家应对流行病的经验（利比里亚）和强大的协调实体（牙买加）是缓解因素。这些结果表明，迫切需要在更正常的时期提高幼儿教育的优先级，并吸取 COVID-19 的教训，以提高幼儿教育在未来危机中的抵御能力。