Children's Rights in The Perspective of Primary School Teachers in The Period COVID-19 Epidemic

Abstract

With the announcement of an epidemic by the World Health Organization in 2020, countries have been restricted in many areas such as economy, health, education, and social life. With this restriction process, it is possible to say that children experience difficulties accessing many salient services, especially education, health, and care services. Therefore, during the COVID-19 epidemic, children can be told that they are deprived of rights based on their protection and development. In this process, the research aims to examine the opinions of primary school teachers, individuals with whom students spend the most time through distance education after their families, on children's rights. Participants of this research, adopting one of the qualitative research methods i.e., phenomenology, consist of 19 primary school teachers working in Yozgat, Turkey, determined by purposeful sampling methods. In the research, data were collected through a semi-structured interview form. The data obtained were analyzed using the descriptive analysis technique. As a result of the research, teachers expressed the most opinions about children's right to life, nutrition, and a quality life standard as well as development right to access information. In addition, the most views were on the right of children to participate, on the right to express their opinions freely and on the right to protection from all kinds of maltreatment, neglect, abuse and exploitation. Therefore, teachers' views on children's rights to life, development, participation, and protection were evaluated as negative.