Education for All in Times of Crisis

Lessons from Covid-19

Marilyn Leask, Sarah Younie

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000430950
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Elementary Education

This book is a response to the loss of learning experienced by children and young people during the Covid-19 crisis. It examines the measures which were taken to fix the disruption of education and their limitations particularly in reaching marginalised groups.

Drawing on data and experiences from around the world, the book examines education systems as ecosystems with interdependencies between many different components which need to be considered when change is contemplated. Chapters explore the challenges involved ensuring continuity of education for all learners in times of crisis and disruption and set out practical solutions that are relevant when preparing for natural disasters and disasters caused by humans as well as for climate change challenges and future pandemics. The focus throughout is on building the sustainability of learners' education into education systems to ensure educational continuity for all learners in times of disruption and crisis.

Including tools for planning, prompts for reflection, and future possibilities to consider, Education for All in Times of Crisis will be valuable reading for school leaders, educators and policy makers.

Section 1
Planning – for continuity of learning and assessment

1
Planning for continuity during periods of disruption

DOI: 10.4324/9781003155591-3

Introduction and context

Unfortunately, as always in education, the consequence of a failure to act decisively will be borne by others long after the main decision makers have deserted the political stage. National and international leaders have the opportunity in their hands to minimise marginalisation of learners. Will they grasp it?

Carl Smith Headteacher, August 2020

In early 2020, the Covid-19 global pandemic erupted. While some countries had existing detailed pandemic plans, built on W HO guidance (200 9) which advised that national pandemic plans should ensure ‘school business continuity’, many countries did not.

Even where national pandemic plans existed, we found that they mentioned that school closure would only be undertaken as an extreme measure. No mention was made of how to ensure learning continued for all learners in this extreme case. The damage caused by this international failure is incalculable.

By March 2020, around the world, schools, colleges and universities (along with all businesses except for essential services) were closed for weeks initially and then months, as countries went into ‘lockdown’, with some closing their borders, to limit transmission of the coronavirus through the population. Lockdowns eased during May/June but by July/August, (when schools were reopening after the summer break in some countries), the spread of the virus was surging and local area lockdowns were imposed by governments along with many travel restrictions and countries imposing typically two-weeks quarantine on travellers returning from hot spots. Schools were reopened then closed again then reopened then closed again as outbreaks occurred (EAGLE Report 2020). By November at the time of writing, the spread of Covid-19 virus was accelerating across Europe with schools in some countries being closed for weeks at a time again. Closing of schools had different consequences for different stakeholders – parents, teachers, pupils – and brought into sharp relief inequalities in societies. Children who had personal internet-connected devices were able to continue their education at home if their teachers moved swiftly to teaching online. Other children from poorer families or with special needs simply missed out (UNESCO 2020a) and were disadvantaged through inequalities in provision.

The Covid-19 crisis laid bare the challenge of ensuring continuity of education at times of disruption. In low-, medium- and high-income countries, governments found it virtually impossible to enable continuity of learning when schools were shut down at short notice. Many thought online learning was the solution only to find the digital divide across all countries marginalised large numbers of learners, denying them education, while for the children of the wealthy (in low-, medium- and high-income countries), their education continued for the most part (ICET/MESHGuides 2020).

Increasing marginalisation of learners during the Covid-19 pandemic

Originally, we had intended to focus in this book on marginalised learners, but as the research data were analysed, we found that all learners were at risk of becoming marginalised when they were no longer in front of teachers. With remote teaching, teachers found it difficult to assess when children were becoming disengaged. So the lessons in this book are not just about continuing education for existing specific groups of marginalised learners but also for the many learners who are ‘at risk’ of becoming marginalised at times of crises as their contact with their teachers and friends contracts, their hopes and plans for the future are put into question and their family lives disrupted. To this end, we seek a greater understanding of what happened to all learners during the Covid-19 pandemic and outline a range of solutions that address the needs of all learners in the future. We found that particular groups of marginalised learners are at risk of being forgotten and in need of additional support such as SEND and EAL learners and those living in disadvantaged households, in remote rural areas, islands or coastal regions. We are also aware that many of the needs of these particular groups are best served by the local schools that have the in-depth understanding and appreciation of their individual circumstances.

We found that as schools and support systems were ‘locked-down’, learners without reliable internet and personal devices rapidly joined the already extensive group of marginalised learners across low-, medium- and high-income countries. The disruption and possible loss of learning for the upcoming generation of young people has the potential to impact seriously on every country’s talent pool, the chance of rapid recovery from a pandemic and the long-term knowledge base of the society (United Nations Development Programme 2020). Young people may end up not possessing the essential knowledge necessary to develop solutions required to address challenges of the future and, even, to maintain the status quo.

Looking to the future

A significant amount of the disruption learners experienced was avoidable because:

• pandemic planning advice existed but was ignored
• open (free) online resources to support schooling, developed by governments in the late 90s and early 2000’s in the emergent internet era in education, developed in the spirit of knowledge being shared for the common good, had been closed, put behind firewalls or privatised (Blamires 2015; White and Parker 2017; World Bank 2017)
• technologies are available to connect remote and marginalised communities to the internet via low orbiting satellites or high altitude balloons as well as to locally generate electricity.

It did not have to be like this, and continuity of learning and assessment can be better in future crises through:

• ‘futurecasting’ techniques and exercises to build preparedness
• pandemic plans being integrated into existing operations to support smoother transition to remote learning in times of crises
• harnessing national and international resources through existing international bodies to co-ordinate access to extensive curriculum resources: schools can only do a certain amount alone. See UNESCO (2020b) for the potential of the Global Education Coalition to do this.

Building on the lessons from Covid-19, this chapter provides an overarching framework for what should be considered in national, regional and school pandemic/crisis plans which strengthen existing practices at national, regional and local levels. Subsequent chapters address specific aspects of the operation of the education sector in turn.

To note: The research data underpinning this chapter were gathered through desk-based research, focus groups in more than 30 countries and through a series of global webinars and interviews from May to October 2020 (as outlined in the Introduction).

Overall challenge: school ‘business continuity and surge capacity’ plans that strengthen existing practices at national, regional and local levels

While the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent national lockdowns and closures of schools may have come as a surprise in early 2020 to many, a simple internet search shows that governments, regional authorities and some schools have had pandemic management plans ready for decades (Uscher-Pines et al. 2018; MESHGuides 2020a; N Z 201 1, 2 02 0). However, few plans provided advice on how teachers and schools could ensure continuity of learning and equity of access to education provision during pandemics.

Pandemic planning advice from the World Health Organisation (WHO 2005, 2009) and European Commission (EC 2009a, b) for managing and assessing readiness for pandemics updated earlier advice. These documents outlined steps which those who have experienced national lockdowns in 2020 will recognise. School closures feature as one of the containment measures:

Influenza spread will be accelerated in schools and other closed communities leading to a potential need to close schools.

(European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control 2006, p. 45)

Advice for English schools from the ministry (DCSF 2008) was that every school should have a pandemic plan linked with regional and national plans. However, this online advice was removed by the 2010 incoming government and has not been updated or replaced since (World Bank 2017). The USA, Canadian and New Zealand government advice was similar, and schools, regional and national bodies have made their plans freely available on the internet (see MESHGuides 2020a for a list of examples).

However, the dilemma at any time of crisis is when to act and what to do. School closures are one of the last actions to be considered, because of the disruption to the learning and well-being of children alongside the impact on the economy and the functioning of society without teachers providing, as a minimum, mass childcare. Experience of other pandemics/epidemics led the European Commission (EC 2009a, b) to suggest school closures as a last resort:

During pandemics with lesser severe disease and of fewer falling sick, such as those seen in 1957 and 1968, some possible community measures (proactive school closures, home working, etc.), though probably reducing transmission, can be more costly and disruptive than the effects of the pandemic itself. Hence such measures may only have a net benefit if implemented during a severe pandemic, for example one that results in high hospitalisation rates or has a case fatality rate comparable to that of the 1918/19 ‘Spanish flu’.¹

(EC 2009a, p. 1)

The risk in keeping schools open is that teachers and schools provide a meeting point linking nearly all community members so the potential for cross-infection and the risks for staff, children and communities can be expected to be hi...