How is the pandemic reshaping the education debate? Part 2: the Americas and South Africa
This panel event in conjunction with the INEI brings together experts from a number of countries to examine how COVID-19 has changed the limits and possibilities for education policy around the world.

Watch the panel discussion
Listen on SoundCloud
In England, the immediate impact of COVID-19 on the education system was profound. Knocking out the system’s very foundations, it heavily disrupted classroom teaching, across all phases, and upended school leaving examinations, with significant knock-on effects for further and higher education.
The impact on learners and educators themselves, as well as on their families, has been equally far-reaching, and, for many, highly distressing. To a greater or lesser extent and in various forms, these challenges have been felt around the world. At the same time, this episode has forced change: as ‘workarounds’, approaches that previously sat at the margins of policy debate have been actioned, while the use of remote learning has, overnight, accelerated far ahead of its previous trajectory.
In what ways have the past six months opened up education policy and practice to new possibilities, and how have those debates evolved in different countries? Within education systems, university faculties of education are an important source of analysis and critique and of new ideas and innovation. What is their role at this time of crisis and how are they responding?
In part 2, the panel considers the case of the Americas and South Africa. Join us to hear more and put your questions to the panel.
Link
In conjunction with the International Network of Educational Institutes (INEI), of which the IOE is a founding member. The INEI was established in 2007 to bring together an international community of educators, to share common experiences and work to bring about advances in education internationally.
Links
- Part 1 of How is the pandemic reshaping the education debate? East Asia, South East Asia, and Australasia
- IOE signs International Network of Educational Institutes statement on the coronavirus pandemic
- INEI
- COVID-19 research at the IOE
Image: Cropped from the poster by Michael Smith submitted to United Nations Global Call Out To Creatives - help stop the spread of COVID-19.
Ana Luiza Jesus da Costa
Professor of History of Education
School of Education, University of São Paulo
[[{"fid":"20799","view_mode":"small","fields":{"format":"small","alignment":"","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Ana Luiza Jesus da Costa","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"Ana Luiza Jesus da Costa","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_float_left_right[und]":"left","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"1"},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"small","alignment":"","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Ana Luiza Jesus da Costa","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"Ana Luiza Jesus da Costa","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_float_left_right[und]":"left","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"1"}},"attributes":{"height":"375","width":"300","class":"media-element file-small"}}]]Ana Luiza Jesus da Costa is currently working on the Pedagogy course and in the Graduate Programme at the University of São Paulo. She also coordinates the Internationalization and Nationalization Commission of the Faculty of Education.
Glen Jones
Professor of Higher Education and Dean of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
University of Toronto
[[{"fid":"20803","view_mode":"small","fields":{"format":"small","alignment":"","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Glen Jones","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"Glen Jones","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_float_left_right[und]":"left","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"1"},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"small","alignment":"","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Glen Jones","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"Glen Jones","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_float_left_right[und]":"left","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"1"}},"attributes":{"height":"375","width":"300","class":"media-element file-small"}}]]Professor Glen Jones' research focuses on higher education policy, governance, and academic work, and he is the author of more than 100 publications. He has received numerous awards for his contributions to research, including an honorary degree from the University of Manitoba in 2018. His most recent books include 'International Education as Public Policy in Canada' (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2020) and 'Professorial Pathways: Academic Careers in a Global Perspective' (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019).
[[{"fid":"21105","view_mode":"small","fields":{"height":"375","width":"300","class":"media-element file-small","format":"small","alignment":"","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Catherine Kell","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"Catherine Kell","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_float_left_right[und]":"left","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"1"},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"height":"375","width":"300","class":"media-element file-small","format":"small","alignment":"","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Catherine Kell","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"Catherine Kell","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_float_left_right[und]":"left","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"1"}},"attributes":{"height":"375","width":"300","class":"media-element file-small"}}]]Catherine Kell specialises in language and literacy in education. She has worked in the field of literacy and language education since the early 1980s, across the University of Cape Town, University of the Western Cape, and various universities in New Zealand, which included a period working as an e-learning designer in the Centre for Academic Development at the University of Auckland. Her work in literacy education spans the contexts of adult education, worker education, schooling, higher education, and academic development. Much of her recent work has focused on digital technologies and literacy education in early schooling.
Associate Professor of Education Policy
Department of Educational Policy Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison
[[{"fid":"20911","view_mode":"small","fields":{"format":"small","alignment":"","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Erica Turner","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"Erica Turner","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_float_left_right[und]":"left","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"1"},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"small","alignment":"","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Erica Turner","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"Erica Turner","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_float_left_right[und]":"left","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"1"}},"attributes":{"height":"225","width":"180","class":"media-element file-small"}}]]Erica O. Turner studies how diverse groups—from school district leaders to students to community members—make sense of and act on education problems, policies, equity and justice amidst shifting social, political, and economic contexts. Her book Suddenly Diverse: How School Districts Manage Race and Inequality (University of Chicago Press, 2020) examines how two Midwestern school districts respond to demographic change in their schools.
Professor of Critical Applied Linguistics
UCL Institute of Education