This study examines parental engagement in their children's pre-primary education in socioeconomically deprived settings in Tanzania. The study administered a Caregiver Report survey to 384 to parents in rural areas prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, focus group discussions were conducted with 106 parents both before and immediately after the pandemic-related school closures. The findings reveal that parental engagement in their children's schooling and learning at home was below expectations, both before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Parents' engagement with their children's learning was hampered by several socio-economic factors. During the pandemic, children from families with a low socio-economic status, and where the parents have a low level of education and were illiterate, were more marginalized in terms of accessing learning. Thus, they might have experienced a greater learning loss because they were neither attending school nor engaging in learning activities at home during the school closures.