The crisis of COVID-19 and opportunities for reimagining education

Abstract

Our argument in this brief contribution is that COVID-19 has brought the experience of education to a crisis with respect to its practices and the theories that inform it. The practice crisis is about the glaring inequalities in peoples' access to education. The theory crisis is about how we learn. Our contention is that our dominant cohort learning approaches fail to address the many differences children bring to the learning task. In response we make two key moves: the first is to restore the centrality of cognition in all processes of teaching and learning, and the second is to situate cognition in its full biopsychosocial complexity. With respect to the first move we begin our discussion of teaching and learning with a focus on cognition and particularly on its executive function component. We provide the explanation of what it is, and with that, we move to our second to show the importance of new learnings about epigenetics that explain the significance of the relationship between the biological and the social to the cognitive process.

Education Policy Imaginary and Crises: The Case of EdTech and the COVID-19 Crisis

“…Yet, crises can also engender new possibilities. Referring specifically to the COVID-19 crisis, Soudien and Harvey (2021, p. 170) contend, ‘The value of the crisis, we argue, is that for the first time in almost the whole of the history of mass education, stakeholders in the learning process intuited those new approaches needed to be developed for facilitating the making of deeply just and equitable learning regimes, methodologies, styles, and practices’. To this end, we propose a set of inter related responses to crises temporally and in future.…”

Psychosocial Implications, Students Integration/Attrition, and Online Teaching and Learning in South Africa’s Higher Education Institutions in the Context of COVID-19

“…Since the demise of apartheid and South Africa's ascendancy to democracy in 1994, the response to transformation and social cohesion has been the mainstay of the initiative to redress the inequities and imbalances that characterised the higher education (HE) landscapes in the days of apartheid. In the present democratic dispensation, the system has continued to witness skewed gaps of inequality, albeit national and institutional policies that have been formulated to respond to include opportunities for students across race, class, and gender [20,23,25,26] (Black Academic Caucus 2020; Soudien 2020; Lewin and Mawoyo 2014; Leibowitz 2009; Akoojee and Nkomo 2007). Over twenty years into democracy, South Africa's institutions of higher learning remain some of the most unequal in the global higher-education community [23,25].…”

“…In the present democratic dispensation, the system has continued to witness skewed gaps of inequality, albeit national and institutional policies that have been formulated to respond to include opportunities for students across race, class, and gender [20,23,25,26] (Black Academic Caucus 2020; Soudien 2020; Lewin and Mawoyo 2014; Leibowitz 2009; Akoojee and Nkomo 2007). Over twenty years into democracy, South Africa's institutions of higher learning remain some of the most unequal in the global higher-education community [23,25]. These gaps of inequality result from a historical past where educational systems were essentially patterned along racial backgrounds, with the potential to reproduce gendered and classed dichotomies.…”

“…Conversely, with the advent of democracy, the South African HE sector has transitioned through major phases, as efforts are continuously made towards achieving the goals of transformation and social cohesion that engendered post-apartheid higher education. While every effort is made to mitigate social inequalities and academic discrepancies, high levels of poverty and other forms of inequality continue to deepen the problems that most students face in South Africa's HEIs [23,25]. The concern raised against marginalised communities in HE is global, and not unique to South Africa.…”

“…As universities transitioned to online teaching, they had to ensure that no student was left behind [19,21]. However, the swift and unplanned move to online teaching and learning afforded students inadequate time for the kind of training required by its users [22][23][24]. This unprecedented change led to the disruption of the academic year, with far-reaching effects on the academic and social life of students, especially those from rural and disempowered economic backgrounds.…”