Thoughts from the Frontline of COVID-19’s Education Crisis
Rarely in human history does an event help expose the inadequacies of our systems all at once. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed failings across the board. In the words of United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, COVID-19 is ‘‘exposing fallacies and falsehoods everywhere: The lie that free markets can deliver healthcare for all; the fiction that unpaid […]
Love the Questions
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves…, Live the questions now. –Rainer Maria Rilke Revisiting Rilke’s advice to love and live questions prompted my own reflection on our current task of developing answers to the many questions requiring an urgent response at the expense of identifying […]
Learning for a New World
As the world becomes increasingly interconnected, so do the risks we face. The COVID-19 pandemic has not stopped at national borders, and affected people regardless of nationality, level of education, income or gender. But that has not been true for its consequences, which have affected the most vulnerable hardest. Education has been no exception. Those from privileged […]
The Fundamental Shift Needed to Transform Education
The cries are resounding: “Education must emerge from this global crisis transformed.” For most of us making those calls, what we mean by transformed is, ultimately: more human (and within that notion, we include more equitable). We are echoing the cries of John Dewey and countless other educators for over a century that our global system of forced, […]
Future-ready Learners’ Outcomes and Assessment
As schools strive to be relevant and globally connected, school reform takes on both local and international contexts. International contexts have become widely associated with comparative results from international tests, such as the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which purport to measure certain aspects […]
Leading in Crisis: The Tensions that Forge
Special Focus : Reimagining Education for a Better Future Working successfully through crisis depends on real leadership. As unpredictability flows across every organizational plane, school leaders are tested emotionally, cognitively, and practically. This has been no more apparent than through the fragility induced by the ongoing coronavirus emergency. The crisis has generated conditions throughout our communities […]
Youth will Pave the Path to Africa’s Future
Key insights from a JA Africa study which was published in June 2020 show that African youth have a predominantly positive outlook and entrepreneurial disposition despite facing a myriad of challenges in the private sector. According to the survey, eighty-three per cent of youth surveyed expect Africa’s private sector to expand significantly over the next five years. The positive mindsets […]
Educating for Well-being: The Need for Systemic Socio-Emotional Learning and Motion Leadership
The COVID-19 pandemic has made evident the need for systemic social and emotional education, for children, teens, and adults. Mental and emotional problems like distraction, depression and suicide, loneliness, and a lack of purpose that were already affecting people’s minds and health, are increasing. We lack strategies to deal with them personally, in education, and […]
Education Leadership in Times of Uncertainty: Rising to the Challenge
The COVID-19 pandemic has raised many challenges to our education systems. Yet, it also presents an opportunity to re-consider the delivery of education and schooling by those in educational leadership positions. School leadership teams play a vital role in creating the environments that support teachers, students and their families to continue to be connected and […]
After Covid-19, Will Chinese Education Achieve Artificial Intelligence?
EdTech and China’s Left-Behind Kids China has 69 million “left behind” rural children. They are left behind literally because their parents work as migrants in wealthy cities, which do not permit non-residents to attend public schools. They are also left behind figuratively because as China’s economy roars ahead their future is uncertain. Rural schools do […]