Is anything changing in schools post-pandemic? Scanning the news from around the world

“What will change in schools and education post-pandemic?” Correne Reyes takes up this question in the 2^nd part of a two-part post scanning news reports describing the proposals for “reimagining” education and chronicling what’s actually changing in a variety of countries. Part 1, “Is anything changing in US schools post-pandemic? Possibilities for rethinking time, place and supports for well-being,” focused on some of the key trends in policy and practice in the US. Reyes also highlighted some of the changes in education policy and practice in an earlier post: What’s Changing Post-COVID in Finland, New Zealand, and South Africa?

Hope remains that, despite the tragic losses and disruptions of the pandemic there may be an opportunity to reimagine critical aspects of schooling. Correspondingly, over the past year, a variety of news and research outlets have shared a wide variety of hopes and proposals for change. At the same time, some long-time observers, like Larry Cu ban, argue that the proposals and visions for change may not find their way into practice. As he put it, “I don’t see COVID producing a lot of reforms. If anything, it produces this huge public and professional need to resume schooling as it was. I think basically schooling has much more stability than change in it. And that’s the historian’s point of view.” Cuban continues, “I think COVID has reminded us that all parents want is a return to face-to-face teaching and to let the teachers teach the lessons that they had before school closures. Let them do what they do best.” To continue the exploration of the proposals and possibilities for changing schools post-pandemic, we highlight some of the related news stories we’ve come across from around the world, many of which echo trends in the US, including concerns about enrollment, “learning loss,” and well-being among students and teachers, and possibilities for digital/remote learning.

“I don’t see COVID producing a lot of reforms. If anything, it produces this huge public and professional need to resume schooling as it was.”
Larry Cuban, How Will COVID-19 Impact School Reform Movements?

Argentina

Educational catastrophe: the pandemic generated a critical dropout rate in Argentina, La Nacion

Australia

GoKid partners to address school transportation crisis, Benzinga

SA schools drop non-essential activities as teachers face ‘exhaustion’ through COVID shortages, ABC News