Imagining what education can be post-COVID-19
- PDF / 412,250 Bytes
- 4 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 102 Downloads / 254 Views
Imagining what education can be post‑COVID‑19 Robert F. Arnove1
© UNESCO IBE 2020
Abstract This Viewpoint argues that the COVID-19 crisis offers a unique chance to imagine more equitable societies and education systems. It is also a call to action, to take meaningful action to bring about that desired future. Keywords COVID-19 · Future of education · Inequality Indian novelist/activist Arundhati Roy (2020) has described the current COVID-19 pandemic as a portal. It is a pathway that leads to a reconfigured future, one that must be different from the world we previously knew. The pandemic’s disproportionate, tragic consequences for health and livelihoods—for individuals, their communities, and even whole societies—underscore institutionalized forms of discrimination rooted in race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexual orientation, age, and abilities. These inequities are patently manifest in education systems around the world. The individuals most marginalized and discriminated against have suffered the greatest from the closure of schools and the efforts to reach students with online instruction. Delivery of education this way illustrates the difficulties posed for students who lack computers or who live in remote areas without electricity or Wi-Fi. These students might not even have space at home where they can work uninterrupted. Furthermore, fundamental services provided by schools have been significantly reduced or unavailable. We cannot go back to this unsatisfactory status quo. COVID-19’s lessons compel us to imagine education systems in which students of all ages can thrive. We know that in many communities, schools are basic resource centers, often providing students with their only nutritious meal of the day. More than that, where equipped with a range of basic amenities, I would like to thank Anthony Arnove and Edward McClellan very their valuable editorial contributions. * Robert F. Arnove [email protected] 1
Indiana University, School of Education, 201 N Rose Ave, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA
13
Vol.:(0123456789)
R. F. Arnove
schools provide running water for showers and laundering. In metropolitan centers as well as in better-endowed rural communities, nurses and other health personnel may be available to attend to basic medical needs. Traumatized students and their parents may have access to counselors and social workers (Ewing and Johnson 2020). Early in my career, I highlighted the importance of imagining community learning centers. In UNICEF’s Assignment Children, I argued that there had been an absence of bold, innovative, and integrated approaches to the education problems of the urban and rural poor in developing countries (Arnove 1973, p. 94). The learning centers I proposed would provide institutional contexts serving multiple needs in these populations with a range of programs and resources. I envisioned these centers as being meeting places where individuals of any age could go to take short courses, receive counseling, share interests, teach skills, receive health and nutritional ca
Data Loading...
