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Salzburg Global Seminar and partners - WISE and Diplomatic Courier - launch e-book covering school responses to the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic
It is no longer news that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought about massive disruption to the education ecosystem—to the learners, teachers, school leaders, parents, and policymakers alike. The changes have been so pervasive, fast-moving, and frequent that one could blink and miss them. After all, there have only been few instances in human history when disruption at this magnitude happened in the span of less than a year.
Since early February, more than a billion students have been out of school—some of them will not be able to return. UN Secretary-General António Guterres recently called this a “generational catastrophe” and indeed, some of the gains we have made in the past 25 years through the Millennium Development Goals and now the Sustainable Development Goals, were erased just in the first five months of the pandemic.
But this is not a story of despair. This is a story of resilience and hope.
The special edition e-book—Education Disrupted, Education Reimagined: Responses from education’s frontline during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond—launched on September 21, was produced in real time, as Salzburg Global Seminar, in partnership with WISE, convened key stakeholders and education leaders from over 98 countries in a three-part series of global conferences aimed at bringing the global education community together. The result is a contemporary historical record of how schools, NGOs, governments, and international organizations responded to school closures during the crisis and how they are attempting to use this crisis as a springboard to reimagine—and even transform—education in their communities and countries.
Key stakeholders on education’s frontline during the crisis, including from schools, NGOs, governments, and international organizations, contributed over 40 articles and essays, documenting the experiences, struggles, successes, and innovations of key institutions on education’s frontline.
From documenting the crisis in real-time to offering short- and long-term solutions, one question remains now: what’s next; what will change?
The e-book offers an opportunity to a global audience to make sense of what happened but it also offers a breeding ground of ideas from some of the world’s top education thinkers. It is the editors’ sincere hope that through this publication we provide the education community with a reference point from the crisis from which future research, policy, and innovation can grow.
“It is our hope that this publication will provide the education community with a reference point from the crisis from which future research, policy, and innovation can grow,” said Dr. Asmaa Al-Fadala, editor of the publication and Director of Research and Content Development at WISE and multi-time Salzburg Global Fellow.
Salzburg Global Program Director for the series, Education for Tomorrow's World, Dominic Regester said: “In in many ways this e-book acts as a record of education responses to the disruption caused by the first phase of the pandemic. It also contains some compelling visions of achievable changes to education systems that would produce more equitable outcomes that are more relevant to 21st century lives. The pandemic has reiterated how important school is to young people and their families and has also shown many ways in which the experience of school can change.” He added: “This feels like the beginning of a much longer term project between WISE and Salzburg Global Seminar and we are excited to be a part of it.”
Contributors include:
Download the e-book here: www.salzburgglobal.org/go/education-ebook