Education in the age of COVID-19: Understanding the consequences

Abstract

There can be no doubt that the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic will be looked back on as a historic moment – one that could come to be seen either as an important turning point for humanity or as a huge missed opportunity, a milestone in the story of our deterioration and mismanagement of the planet. How we respond and the actions we take now will have a profound impact on the society of the future, including the future of education. It will determine whether we continue on our current course, leading, as it would appear, to increasingly brutal, authoritarian and inequitable forms of capitalism, or whether we recognise the profound dysfunction at the heart of our socio-economic arrangements and try to create something better. To do so, we must be sure to act on the basis of values and principles that can enable us not only to build back better but to build back fairer and in a more inclusive, democratic and sustainable way. Education, of course, has a critical role in all of this, as it helps to mould these formative values while at the same time being moulded by them. Understanding how we might change means understanding what has happened, its impact and the deeper problems it has exposed and, in some instances, exacerbated. We cannot continue to affect not to know the things that we plainly know, or deny the realities of the world we have helped create. For educators, the disruption of educational activities and practices that has resulted from the pandemic has been immense. Its impact continues to raise significant concerns. The closure of schools, universities and technical institutions around the world has disrupted the lives and learning of a whole generation of students. And while there have been many examples of institutions responding creatively to ensure continuity of learning through