Education International
other critical natural resources and infrastructure – are bringing new geophysical, political and economic challenges, and creating new and hard-to-manage instabilities” (Lee, 2020, p. 1101).
2. Global education responses to COVID-19 Much has been documented regarding the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on education systems globally. However, this review discusses these responses as follows: • • • •
Education governance and policy response; Education responses relating to the delivery of education; Education responses relating to curriculum and assessment; and Education responses relating to teacher professional development.
A. Global education policy response With COVID-19 a common adversary, global education responses to limit the spread of the virus have resulted in a number of similar trends. The national lockdowns enforced by multiple states not only included the closing down of various industries important to maintaining stable economies, but also involved the closing of schools. By the latter part of March 2020, countless schools across the globe were either fully or partially closed, as demonstrated in Figure 4 below. By mid-April, 1.725 billion students world-wide were affected by school closures, impacting about 99% of the world’s student population (UNESCO, 2020a).
Figure 4. Global monitoring of school closures caused by COVID-19 as of 26/03/2020 (UNESCO, 2020a) 24
