The Coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated existing educational inequalities worldwide. It is estimated that years of progress made in improving education access and quality will be lost, and action taken to limit the impact must also try to create a fairer education system going forward.
As well as targeted funding and resources for minimising attainment losses for all young people, longer term education policies will benefit from a strong evidence base from which it is possible to:
- Develop and implement blended learning and assessment that is inclusive of poorer children and those with additional learning or accessibility needs.
- Identify best practice in design and delivery of professional development for teachers and teaching assistants.
Planning and enabling new ways of working as a result of the pandemic places additional demands on schools. This will require additional investment to provide the extra capacity needed so that learning is not interrupted while teaching staff implement changes and undertake the necessary professional development.
This briefing note summarises findings drawn from an initial scan of the evidence on the international education response to the Coronavirus pandemic, and potential implications for Wales. Policy briefs synthesising the best available evidence on the following three topics will be published next year:
- Blended teaching and learning (inc. asynchronous provision);
- ‘Catch up interventions’; and
- Professional learning and development models.