COVID-19 as a Focus of the 2021 Report

Since 2018, the obvious impact of the COVID-19 pandemic cannot be underestimated. On the one hand, as schools and teachers executed an almost overnight shift in the delivery of teaching and learning, often using online technologies, the public and media support for the profession was obvious, perhaps partly because parents tasked with assisting their children’s learning at home came to recognise the skill and expertise in a range of domains each teacher possesses (Heffernan et al., 2021). On the other hand, where governments demanded that schools stayed open, or failed to provide adequate protections for teachers, or made seemingly arbitrary decisions about the safety of the teaching workforce (such as deciding it was unsafe for politicians to assemble but eminently safe for teachers to work with classrooms full of students without needing any protective equipment), teachers and their unions were represented in a very negative light.

There are also more intangible effects of the pandemic, as teachers experienced significant stress in a number of areas. A recent UNESCO report found that the decision to close schools has a significant impact for communities, particularly for students and teachers (UNESCO, 2021). In England, from a longitudinal study of 8,000 teachers, very high levels of stress were reported when it was announced that schools would close in March 2020, and again when they re-opened in May (Allen, Jerrim, & Sims, 2020).

As governments proceed with economic responses to the fallout of the pandemic, concerns are being raised about the impact on education funding. A report from the World Bank Group suggests that education budgets have declined by 65 per cent in low- and middle-income countries, and 33 per cent in upper-middle- and high-income countries (Al-Samarrai et al., 2021). In light of the issues raised in this report about the impact of under-resourcing on teachers’ work, the ongoing impact of the pandemic requires urgent monitoring.

School closures carry high social and economic costs for people across communities. Their impact however is particularly severe for the most vulnerable and marginalised boys and girls and their families. The resulting disruptions exacerbate already existing disparities within the education system but also in other aspects of their lives. These include:

• Interrupted learning: Schooling provides essential learning and when schools close, children and youth are deprived of opportunities for growth and development. The disadvantages are disproportionate for under-privileged learners who tend to have fewer educational opportunities beyond school.

• Poor nutrition: Many children and youth rely on free or discounted meals provided at schools for food and healthy nutrition. When schools close, nutrition is compromised.

• Confusion and stress for teachers: When schools close, especially unexpectedly and for unknown durations, teachers are often unsure of their obligations and how to maintain connections with students to support learning. Transitions to distance learning platforms tend to be messy and frustrating, even in the best circumstances. In many contexts, school closures lead to furloughs or separations for teachers.

• Parents unprepared for distance and home schooling: When schools close, parents are often asked to facilitate the learning of children at home and can struggle to perform this task. This is especially true for parents with limited education and resources.

• Challenges creating, maintaining, and improving distance learning: Demand for distance learning skyrockets when schools close and often overwhelms existing portals to remote education. Moving learning from classrooms to homes at scale and in a hurry presents enormous challenges, both human and technical.

• Gaps in childcare: In the absence of alternative options, working parents often leave children alone when schools close and this can lead to risky behaviours, including increased influence of peer pressure and substance abuse.

• High economic costs: Working parents are more likely to miss work when schools close in order to take care of their children. This results in wage loss and tends to negatively impact productivity.

• Unintended strain on healthcare systems: Healthcare workers with children cannot easily attend work because of childcare obligations that result from school closures. This means that many medical professionals are not at the facilities where they are most needed during a health crisis.

• Increased pressure on schools and school systems that remain open: Localised school closures place burdens on schools as governments and parents alike redirect children to schools that remain open.

• Rise in dropout rates: It is a challenge to ensure children and youth return and stay in school when schools reopen after closures. This is especially true of protracted closures and when economic shocks place pressure on children to work and generate income for financially distressed families.

• Increased exposure to violence and exploitation: When schools shut down, early marriages increase, more children are recruited into militias, sexual exploitation of girls and young women rises, teenage pregnancies become more common, and the use of child labour increases.

• Social isolation: Schools are hubs of social activity and human interaction. When schools close, many children and youth miss out on social contact that is essential to learning and development.

• Challenges measuring and validating learning: Calendared assessments, notably high-stakes examinations that determine admission or advancement to new education levels and institutions, are thrown into disarray when schools close. Strategies to postpone, skip, or administer examinations at a distance raise serious concerns about fairness, especially when access to learning becomes variable. Disruptions to assessments results in stress for students and their families and can trigger disengagement.

Source: UNESCO: https://en.unesco.org/covid19/educationresponse/consequences/

Similarly, the OECD’s report, The Impact of COVID-19 on Education: Insights from Education at a Glance 2020 (Schleicher, 2020), stressed the impact that school shutdowns would have on student learning, while failing to consider the impact that COVID-19 could have on teachers’ (as well as students’) stress and wellbeing. Schleicher (2020, p.4) argued that COVID-19 “has exposed the many inadequacies and inequities in our education systems – from access to the broadband and computers needed for online education, and the supportive environments needed to focus on learning, up to the misalignment between resources and needs”.

Broadly speaking, this survey of unions has found similar concerns regarding the impact of COVID-19 on education systems. There is concern that students, particularly those from least advantaged backgrounds, were significantly disadvantaged. There is ongoing concern around teacher health and wellbeing, partly related to the increase in workload, and partly related to the nature of the pandemic itself (Dabrowski, 2020). There is also a sense of frustration that the issues of underfunding, lack of resourcing, and failure to invest in education facilities, digital infrastructure, CPD, and support for students that governments had been warned about for some time contributed to this state of affairs.