Editorial: Education in Europe and the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Although the global Covid-19 pandemic is still affecting our lives enormously, we know that a new era of deep reflection about ‘normality’, our planet and our existence on it has also begun. The ‘Education in Europe and the Covid-19 Pandemic’ double Special Issue intends to be part of this reflexive discussion about the post-pandemic European education policy and research space. This is a space shaped continuously by crises and opportunities, by utopias of a shared progressive and liberal education for all, but also the dystopias of nationalism, populism, climate destruction and now a global health emergency. This editorial offers an overview of the current crisis context and of the articles; further, it positions the journal within the post-pandemic research and policy debate about how to understand the impact of the pandemic on the changing forms of education and its enduring inequalities.

The EU’s Education Policy Response to the Covid-19 Pandemic: A Discourse and Content Analysis

“…The proposed initiatives to deal with the crisis seem to recycle old ideas that are used to propose reforms in education inspired by technological solutionism (Grek & Landri, 2021). Although the pandemic is widely recognised as a window of opportunity for radical changes, it is mainly used as an accelerator to bring forward existing policy agendas characterised by the datafication of education (Brady & Bates, 2016;Grek et al, 2009), the digitisation of education policy (Grek & Landri, 2021;Salajan, 2019) and the idea that education should prepare a flexible up-to-date workforce (Panitsides & Anastasiadou, 2015). Within this context, however, we can also notice an effort to support and promote the social dimension of education.…”

“…An open public consultation for the Digital Education Action Plan thus took place and several stakeholders expressed their learning experiences during the pandemic (see EC, 2020c) What becomes clear from the analysis of the policy documents is that the Covid-19 pandemic merely offered the opportunity for advancing the digital agenda in education, since policies about digital education or learning at EU level date back to 1994 (Salajan, 2019). Well before the pandemic, the digitisation of education policy and practice had established itself as a key instrument for the datafication of education, which is the broader process of producing education data intended to make systems visible, commensurable and comparable (Grek & Landri, 2021). However, the intention to enhance datafication is now presented as a way to repair education systems and help them recover (see EC, 2020c).…”

“…Despite the Covid-19 crisis being a transnational issue and a common challenge for European societies, country responses were indeed different and revealed the need for more coordinated responses by EU institutions (Iozzo & Masini, 2020;Schmidt, 2020). According to Grek and Landri (2021), the pandemic provoked the suspension of the mechanisms of European education governance, highlighting the limits of its fabrication, and a return to strong state-centred policies in education. The focus of the EU shifted to the support of member states and the decisions that had to be taken regarding school closures.…”

“…At the EU level, important decisions were taken when the Stability and Growth Pact was suspended for the first time in March 2020, and when a longterm EU budget (€1.8 trillion) and a recovery plan called Next Generation EU (€750 billion) was agreed between EU member states in July 2020. Despite initial hesitation, these initiatives opened a space of possibilities, showing that EU leaders gave priority to the protection of their citizens, suspending the dominant economic regime (Grek & Landri, 2021). Tied with the new budget and the Next Generation EU plan, the European Commission (EC) updated its education strategy for the new European Education Area to be established by 2025 (EC, 2020a), an initiative introduced in 2017 by the Junker Commission.…”

Web-based evaluation for teacher professional program: Design and development studies

“…Some educational program services have been disrupted due to various changes and adjustments that must be made. Covid 19 brings a very big crisis and has affected the mobility of human life in the world (Grek & Landri, 2021). Since the pandemic, all human activities have begun to be limited, especially activities related to mobility that involve many people.…”