TVET and skills development in the time of Covid-19

By Paul Comyn, Senior Skills Specialist, ILO

With less than 5 months since the first official reporting of a Coronavirus (COVID-19) case, we have almost arrived at a global paralysis of regular education and training provision. This unprecedented situation is affecting learning at all levels but especially initial and continuing TVET, adult education and work-based learning, which have come to a stop as we know them.  The situation has upturned course schedules and attendance, disrupted teaching and learning, frustrated examinations and assessments, delayed certification and will likely affect the immediate and future careers of millions of learners. But TVET and skills programs do not easily migrate to distance and online learning.

Despite these challenges, in some contexts, it is clear that the crisis also provides an opportunity for the development of more flexible learning solutions that make better use of distance learning and digital tools. However, the shift to online or distance learning in TVET and skills development during the pandemic should be seen first and foremost as an emergency response and not a rapid and permanent migration of programs. Short term solutions can be and have been found but we must seize this opportunity to create long-term positive impacts and develop greater resilience.

Mobilising human and financial resources during this crisis is fundamental to ensure universal access to digital tools and modern learning technologies in the TVET and skills sector. The training of teachers and instructors, managers and learners to ensure their readiness to engage in digital learning must be addressed, and education and training providers have to revise teaching and learning models to make the best use of digital resources and tools.

Covid-19 school closures and the summer break

The shift in emphasis in global education debates in recent years towards learning outcomes has been so strong that sometimes it seemed as if we no longer valued education access unless it led to learning. The reaction to school closures in response to the Covid-19 pandemic is a powerful reminder that in fact we do, instinctively, care about access per se, and even about the time physically spent in school. But it is also a reminder that we do not care about it consistently.

Just as some countries like Austria and Denmark are reopening schools, the prospect of schools re-opening their doors anytime soon is receding in many other countries. But even when closures were initially announced for 1-2 months, the education community rightly went into crisis mode. This is despite the fact that closing schools for 2 or even 3 months every year as we do in the summer is considered business as usual.

The point is not to argue that the current situation is less serious than it seems, but to remind ourselves that the question of how much time is spent at and away from school is not as trivial as it seems, even at the best of times.

Image: GPE/Midastouch

There are large institutional differences between countries with respect to instruction time and the academic calendar. There are 141 school days per year in a normal year in France, for example, meaning that schools are closed for the equivalent of around three months more than in the Republic of Korea with 220 school days. With respect to uninterrupted periods away from school, differences are also large. The summer break between academic years is only one month in Bangladesh, but around 3 months in the Russian Federation, for example. Students in Italy have one extra month every year not in school compared to their peers in the Netherlands. And on top of these differences there are differences in the length of the school day and as a result, in actual instruction time.

Schools closing is a risk to our village’s future

By Francis Silvester, director of a school in rural Kenya

I run a private school called Tower of Light in a rural place commonly known as Yala Swamp 17km away from Siaya town in Kenya. It is a registered school with the Ministry of Education. On March 16th the President closed down all the learning institutions in the country because of the Coronavirus. My concern is that this might waste all the education efforts the children of this village have made. I worry it could send them back to their old life where girls get married and boys have to go back to the lake to fish.

I started this school because after my diploma in education in 2007 and completing my college education, I wanted to be a teacher, but the Kenyan government was not hiring at that time.  I wanted to help the children of Yala Swamp to read and write, because most of them were not going to school. Many girls were getting married at just 12 years old.

I ran a door-to-door campaign about the importance of children going to school. With the small fee of 100 Kenyan Shillings ($1) parents brought as a small payment, I was able to rent a room and I started Tower of Light with five children. The more I raised awareness in this village, the more they brought their children to school.  I worked hard and bought a small piece of land. Using old iron sheets, I built some classrooms. Some children are still in rented rooms because we have not enough funds to build more classes. Today there are 160 children, 70% girls and 30% boys, with 13 teachers teaching from ECDE to Grade 8. Nine of the teachers are female and four are male.

How will Covid-19 affect the internationalization of higher education?

Image: Refugee Trauma Initiative © UNHCR/Antoine Tardy

University costs. It didn’t take long after universities closed their doors in the United States, for instance, for students to start advocating to get their money back. Twitter is awash with professors concerned about the impact that shutting universities is going to have on their institutions in the long-term. University is one of the biggest investments many people will make in their lifetime. But why do so when you could be paying a fraction of the price to take part in an online course? What about students and professors shut out of the countries where they are supposed to be studying and teaching? The ramifications are complex, and heavily intertwined with economics.

Many universities reduced or suspended fees in some way. The University of Chicago agreed to freeze tuition for the next academic year. Universities in Dubai slashed their fees and fees were suspended in 52 universities in Thailand. Chile also passed a bill on March 27 to suspend all tuition fee payments for as long as the coronavirus crisis lasts.

Stopping fees doesn’t stop interest related to student loans, though. In the United States, loans amount to a whopping $1.59 trillion. A $2.2 trillion stimulus plan, the CARES Act, will give some relief to some students, but with many exceptions. Student Loan Borrower Assistance, an NGO, estimates that around nine million students have at least one loan that doesn’t qualify for relief under the plan.

Charlotte, a teacher from Marseille: “We’re being asked to do a completely different job from before.”

The onset of Covid-19 means that teachers like me are suddenly being asked to do completely different jobs. While we were in the classroom engaging with children before, now we’re at home and trying to engage with their parents. I work in a very underprivileged school in Marseille. I now find that part of our work is almost humanitarian. I have had to try to deduce whether the families of the children I was teaching have enough money to eat or not, as many were benefitting from school meals or other forms of social aid that they can’t now access, as lots of the benefits centres are closed. Lots of the markets selling cheaper food are also closed, as are the associations that would help with food distribution. My colleagues and I are proud to say that about 30 families from my school will be receiving food boxes this week.

But this hasn’t been easy. My school is made up of several nationalities, with lots of children from Northern Africa and the Middle East. Many of the families of the children I teach often don’t speak French. So the parents I am calling might just say ‘ok, ok, ok’ because they don’t understand what I’m asking. I’ve had to set up calls with other parents who can translate and speak to them on the side to really get the truth. I have realised along the way that many of those parents are ashamed to tell me they need help. I’m their kid’s teacher after all, not their social worker. This is new for me, but it’s also new for them.

Image: Liz Henry

Coronavirus: France has called for educational continuity

English / Français

By Anna Cristina D’Addio, Senior Policy Analyst, GEM Report, member of the Conseil d’Evaluation de l’Ecole, and mother of a teenage (lower) secondary school student in France.

France closed all schools, colleges, high schools and universities on March 16 to help stop the spread of Coronavirus (Covid-19). We heard this Monday that schools will start to open progressively from May 11, although upper secondary schools will remain closed until the summer. During these closures, the Minister of Education has called for “continuité pédagogique” (educational continuity). This means that “the link with school and learning should be maintained in different forms. It is important that every student, whether they have an internet connection or not, benefit from this continuity.” But how does it work?

Apart from the 20,000 children of frontline workers still being taught by volunteer teachers, the rest of the country has moved to distance learning.  France was well positioned in one sense for this shift. In 2016, its digital plan for education, and its curriculum reform created banks of digital resources (BRNE). These included activities and lessons and enabled monitoring and evaluation of groups or students from the 4th grade of primary school to the 3rd grade of lower secondary school.

Image: woodleywonderworks

France already has a National Center for Distance Education (CNED). As soon as school closed down, it set up “My class at home” with online content for primary, lower secondary and upper secondary students. In addition to stock lessons, there are tasks to complete and lessons given by videoconference.  The websites of both the Ministry of National Education and Youth and the Ministry of Higher Education also have a wealth of other material.  ‘Digital workspaces” (“Environment Numérique de travail” – ENT) such as  EcoleDirecte, ProNote, One, etc, which are intranets specific to each establishment, and via which students and teachers exchange lessons, exercises, and messages, also exist. All secondary schools have such spaces set up. Each Académie can also provide its own resources on their own sites as well.

Coronavirus: la France a appelé à la continuité pédagogique

English / Français

Par Anna Cristina D’Addio, Responsable Principal de Projet, GEM Report (UNESCO), membre du nouveau Conseil d’Evaluation de l’Ecole et mère d’une élève du collège en France.

La France a fermé toutes les écoles, collèges, lycées et universités le 16 mars 2020 pour aider à freiner la propagation du coronavirus (Covid-19). Nous avons appris ce lundi que les écoles, collèges et lycées pourraient, en principe,  commencer à ouvrir progressivement à partir du 11 mai, tandis que l’enseignement supérieur continuera à distance jusqu’à l’été. Lors de ces fermetures, le ministre de l’Éducation a appelé à la «continuité pédagogique». Cela signifie que « Le lien avec l’école et les apprentissages doit être maintenu sous des formes différentes. Il est important que chaque élève, qu’il ait une connexion internet ou non, bénéficie de cette continuité. » Mais comment cela marche-t-il en pratique ?

Hormis les 20 000 enfants des travailleurs engagés en première ligne dans la lutte contre le virus qui continuent l’école grâce à des professeurs volontaires héroïques, le reste du pays est passé à l’enseignement à distance. D’une certaine manière, la France était bien positionnée pour ce virage. En effet, dès 2016, son plan numérique pour l’éducation et sa réforme des programmes d’études ont mis en place des banques de ressources numériques (BRNE). Celles-ci permettent de créer des activités pédagogiques et des cours, un suivi et une évaluation de groupes ou d’élèves de la 4e année du primaire à la 3e année du premier cycle du secondaire.

Image: woodleywonderworks

La France disposait déjà d’un Centre national d’enseignement à distance (CNED). Dès la fermeture de l’école, «Ma classe à la maison» a permis d’offrir  du contenu en ligne pour les élèves du primaire, du collège et du lycée. En plus des cours, des tâches à compléter et d’autres supports pédagogiques, la plateforme permet aussi de tenir les leçons par visioconférence. Les sites Web du ministère de l’Éducation nationale et de la Jeunesse et du ministère de l’Enseignement supérieur, de la Recherche et de l’Innovation proposent aussi une multitude de ressources. Chaque Académie peut mettre également  à disposition ses propres ressources sur ses propres sites.

Des «Environnements (Espaces) Numériques de Travail» (ENT) tels que EcoleDirecte, ProNote and One,  (c’est-à-dire des intranets spécifiques à chaque établissement, et par lesquels les étudiants, leurs parents  et les professeurs partagent les cours, les exercices et des messages) existent également. L’usage de ces outils est généralisé dans les collèges et lycées, mais beaucoup moins dans les écoles primaires et en maternelle.

Pour les élèves sans ordinateur à la maison ou sans connexion Internet, la continuité pédagogique se décline autrement.

Covid-19: How is Greece coping with school closure?

As with other countries around the world, Greece has faced two main challenges in its response to the coronavirus pandemic: delivering distance education and managing the postponement of examinations. Other challenges have also appeared, which show that no one approach will suit all countries. Covid-19 has all policy makers thinking on their feet.

Distance education as a challenge and an opportunity

In some parts of the country, school closures began as early as March 5, one of the measures credited with the relatively slow rise in infection rates. The Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs has responded to the crisis calling it an opportunity to bring forward long-awaited reforms for the development of the education community’s digital skills. The crisis has in fact coincided with the provision of a wide range of long overdue online services to citizens, beyond education.

Interventions were staggered in the immediate aftermath of the closures, and the last grade of secondary school was prioritized. All secondary schools had made distance learning arrangements by March 23, the date when implementation began in primary schools.

Image: Στέλιος Δ.

However, this task was complicated by the legacy of the great financial crisis, which has delayed necessary investments in ICT and has deepened poverty: according to OECD data based on the 2018 PISA, 1 in 5 students attending the poorest quartile of Greek schools do not have access to a computer they can use for schoolwork, while 1 in 10 do not have access to the internet. More than 1 in 3 students attended schools whose head teachers maintained that their teachers did not have the necessary technical and pedagogical skills to integrate digital devices in instruction. Altogether 4 in 10 students attended schools whose head teachers acknowledged that an effective online learning support platform was not available.

“Every child is like any other” – Robert Lumu wins Inclusion and Education photo contest

Robert Lumu’s photograph of 9-year-old Jemba John, sitting and reading with his peers at his school in Central Uganda, where Albinism is still considered a curse, is the winner of the 2020 GEM Report photo competition on inclusion and education. The competition was calling for photos that capture either the essence of inclusive education or help depict some of the key challenges standing in its way, illustrating different interpretations of inclusive education from around the globe and influencing the way people think through images.

Image: Robert Lumu

The caption to Lumu’s photo speaks for itself. “As the first term of 2019 began on 4 February, amongst the learners who reported at Kanziira Islamic primary school in Kiboga district was a young, zealous and courageous young boy, Jemba John. Now ten years old, Jemba lives with his grandmother in the villages of Kanziira. He is a happy young boy living with Albinism.

In most rural areas of Uganda, children living with disabilities or with Albinism still face big challenges of discrimination by both their immediate relatives and communities at large. They are considered to be a curse in the family. Discrimination towards people living with Albinism in particular is one of the major issues in Uganda and some other African countries that needs special attention. Children living with Albinism need a lot of protection.

Learning crisis and girls’ education in Afghanistan

By M Niaz Asadullah, Professor of Development Economics at the University of Malaya, Malaysia

A recent GEM Report blog based on WIDE data highlighted  Afghanistan as one of “the bottom ten countries for girls’ education” in three dimensions: (i) mean years of education of poorest females, (ii) ages 20-24, primary schooling and (iii) lower-secondary schooling. This is despite the fact that it is almost two decades since the end of the Taliban era. This blog looks at new research on the country’s progress in girls’ schooling since that time, both in terms of enrolment gains as well as how much girls learn in school. It voices the fear that the onset of Covid-19 might be another crisis for girls’ education in Afghanistan just when it might have been about to make a turn for the better.

The slow and painful improvement of girls’ education in Afghanistan since the Taliban era

Image: Arete / Ivan Armando Flores / UNESCO

Although nearly two decades have passed since the Taliban era, Afghanistan remains one of the world’s most challenging locations for women. Female education suffered badly during the 5-year Taliban rule (1996-2001). A nationwide ban was put in place in 1997 on girls’ public education and women’s work in public places.  At the end of the repressive regime in November 2001, the influence of patriarchy remains strong. Most girls do not continue to a secondary education. Attacks on girls’ schools are still prevalent.

But despite these challenges, there has been progress.  In a recently published research paper entitled “Enrolling Girls without Learning: Evidence from Public Schools in Afghanistan“, I and two colleagues from BRAC studied progress in the post-Taliban era by asking two questions: (1) How has female enrolment responded? (2) What are girls learning in government-run schools?