Academic education during the Covid-19 pandemic – Polish and Italian experience

Abstract

The diagnoses and empirical analyses described in the article were linked by a common research problem expressed in the question about the experiences of academic entities in the field of remote education in the situation of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic. The international research reported in the text, however, was conducted in an extra-coordinated situation (to a large extent during the lockdown period), applying two methodological approaches in complementary quantitative and qualitative procedures. Elements of a diagnostic survey (in Polish studies) and an analysis of the content of documents (in Italian studies) were used. The application of the indicated procedures allowed to obtain a complementary image of the experiences of higher education entities in the research situation outlined. The empirical analyses presented in the text allow for the formulation of certain common conclusions resulting from the reported international research. The international and global experience is a novelty of the epidemic situation in which remote education was implemented. The necessity arose to focus on the new conditions of relations between entities in academic education, which differ from traditional direct contact, as already indicated to us by Socrates and Plato. The lockdown changed these relationships. The everyday life of universities has been disrupted, which requires new solutions for the organisation of the educational process.