Challenges For Education During The Pandemic An Overview of Literature
Challenges For Education During The Pandemic An Overview of Literature
Challenges For Education During The Pandemic An Overview of Literature
Received in October Nadezhda Radina, Doctor of Sciences in Political Institutes, Processes and Technolo-
2020 gies, Candidate of Sciences in Pedagogical Psychology, Professor, Faculty of Social
Sciences, National Research University Higher School of Economics. Email: rasv@
yandex.ru (Corresponding author)
Julia Balakina, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Literature and Intercultural
Communication, National Research University Higher School of Economics. Email:
[email protected]
Address: 25/12 Bolshaya Pecherskaya St, 603155 Nizhny Novgorod, Russian Federation.
Abstract This article overviews studies exploring the COVID‑19 pandemic’s impact on educa-
tion systems and their responses to lockdown restrictions, comparing available find-
ings with international statistics based on continuous education system monitoring.
Global organizations acknowledge disruption of classical educational processes and
emergency transition to distance learning during the pandemic. Scientific literature
examines accessibility of online education, alternative forms of distance learning, and
the pandemic-induced financial constraints on universities inhibiting new construction,
social support for students, scholarship application, professional development of fac-
ulty members, and research growth. The pandemic illuminated the issue of inequal-
ity in education, which worsened as a result of emergency transition to online stud-
ies. In particular, researchers focus on the most vulnerable groups of students, such
as children from low-income families, children from migrant backgrounds, and stu-
dents with disabilities.
Projects aimed at studying the digitalization of education account for the biggest
chunk of research inspired by the new pandemic reality. A number of studies discuss
not just a formal transition to distance learning but a major technological turn that
allows using the unique opportunities provided by digital technologies, which is espe-
cially important when teaching medical students.
Theoretical inquiry is a distinctive feature of scientific discourse, as compared to the
discourse of international expert and analytical reports on the problems of education
in the context of the COVID‑19 pandemic. Research on changes to the learning pro-
cess makes it possible to reconstruct the direct and indirect, as well as latent, threats
of the pandemic.
Keywords pandemic, COVID‑19, online education, distance learning, isolation, inequality in edu-
cation, medical education.
For citing Radina N. K., Balakina J. V. (2021) Vyzovy obrazovaniyu v usloviyakh pandemii: obzor
issledovaniy [Challenges for Education during the Pandemic: An Overview of Litera-
ture]. Voprosy obrazovaniya / Educational Studies Moscow, no 1, pp. 178–194. https://doi.
org/10.17323/1814-9545-2021-1-178-194
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The COVID‑19 pandemic changed the social, economic, and cultural as-
pects of public life, and it certainly could not leave education unaffect-
ed. The UNESCO, the OECD, and the World Bank have been continu-
ously monitoring changes in education caused by the pandemic. Based
on their findings, they have identified the main tendencies of change,
outlined the group of people involved in problematic transformations
(students, their parents, teachers, and education stakeholders), and
developed global and local practical recommendations for best prac-
tices [Department of International and Regional Cooperation of the
Accounting Chamber of the Russian Federation 2020].
Two major trends have been common to national education sys-
tems worldwide in the context of the pandemic: disruption of classi-
cal educational processes and emergency transition to distance learn-
ing formats.
Learning disruption increased socioeconomic inequality in educa-
tion. Among specific threats, international organizations mention in-
terrupted learning, difficulties obtaining the usual economic support
(e. g. free or reduced meals at school), child neglect (in case parents
went to work) or high economic costs of childcare (if it prevented par-
ents from working outside the home), health system overload (if fe-
male health workers had to stay home to look for their children), and
problems directly related to schooling: increased workload in schools
that remained open, a rise in dropout rates following the reopening of
schools, and reduced opportunities for student socialization.
Challenges of the pandemic were multidimensional, affecting the
economic, technological, social, and methodological aspects of edu-
cation. According to international studies, very few education systems
were fully prepared for the transition to distance learning due to tech-
nological as well as economic factors. Difficulties of integrating dis-
tance learning formats could be psychological (unfamiliar format of
classes and diminished motivation, which decreased learning effective-
ness), socio-psychological (co-responsibility of parents for the organi-
zation of distance learning), methodological (difficulty of moving some
educational activities online; additional training for teachers to em-
brace new teaching methods), and policy-related (lack of management
models describing the transition to online learning). All these challeng-
es have a common effect of increasing social stratification and ine-
quality during the distance learning period imposed by the pandemic.
The overall picture of education during the COVID‑19 pandemic is
constructed not only from the monitoring reports of international or-
ganizations but also from the relevant scientific publications. Exten-
sive surveys performed by international organizations and research
studies focusing on specific problems complement each other in re-
constructing the context in which education systems have had to op-
erate during the pandemic.
The present article is aimed at systematizing the available findings
on education during the COVID‑19 pandemic and comparing them with
Search for and selection of publications were carried out using the of-
ficial websites of the publishers Elsevier, Wiley, Springer, Sage, Oxford
University Press, and Cambridge University Press (available in the Na-
tional Research University Higher School of Economics’ digital library
of scientific periodicals). The portal eLIBRARY.RU was used as well, spe-
cifically open-access articles. The sample included publications of the
types “research article” and “book chapter” for the period from April to
November 2020 as well as works to be published in 2021, which usu-
ally represented findings from empirical studies.
The logic of publication analysis and classification implied identi-
fying the major trends in research on education during the COVID‑19
pandemic and comparing the findings with the key challenges in mod-
ern education reported by international expert communities: digitali-
zation of education and disruption of the educational process, which
exacerbated the reproduction of socioeconomic inequality during the
pandemic [Department of International and Regional Cooperation of
the Accounting Chamber of the Russian Federation 2020].
Even research centers that engage in forecasting did not previously
qualify the pandemic threat and the following “imposed” digitalization
of social life among challenges of the future (see, for instance, [Nes-
tik, Zhuravlev 2018]). A review of recent reports of international organ-
izations and research findings on changes in education caused by the
pandemic will allow estimating the possible damage and finding the
best possible ways out of the COVID‑19 crisis in education.
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T H E I M PAC T O F T H E COV I D - 1 9 PA N D E M I C O N E D U C AT I O N
Global Rankings Comparative analysis of the discourse on education during the COV-
and Academic ID‑19 pandemic between scientific literature and reports of interna-
Research: tional organizations shows that both types of sources emphasize the
Specific Aspects challenges of digitalization and learning disruption as increasing the
of Constructing reproduction of inequality in education. Emergency transition to dis-
the Pandemic tance (online) learning is seen as the greatest challenge for education
Context during the pandemic in international reports and digests [Department
of International and Regional Cooperation of the Accounting Cham-
ber of the Russian Federation 2020; Arzhanova et al. 2020], just as in
research publications.
Analytical reports of international organizations provide a thor-
ough and comprehensive analysis of online learning, paying due re-
gard to its impact on students and faculty’s health (working on com-
puter, negative psychological aspects of isolation, etc.) and the need
for enhancing schools’ technological infrastructure (access to porta-
ble computers instead of smartphones, which is closely related to the
problem of educational inequality) and recommending the develop-
ment of an integrated portal for all programs, apps, platforms, and
materials required for distance learning as well as relevant tutorials
for students, their parents, and teachers.
As for the academic discourse, researchers acknowledge that the
emergency form of online learning imposed today on all schools and
universities meets neither public expectations nor high-quality learn-
ing standards [Tishchenko 2020; Yakobyuk 2020; Jan 2020].
Although universities were more prepared for the transition to on-
line technology in education, the pandemic factor complicated the sit-
uation of accepting the digitalization, largely due to the negative psy-
chological context [Ozkaral, Bozyi̇ gi̇ t 2020; Kerres 2020]. At the same
time, a number of researchers point to the resources that have be-
come available thanks to the “emergency digitalization” of education.
They discuss the need for fundamentally new multimodal approach-
es to course content design [Bao 2020; Mishra, Gupta, Shree 2020],
which is especially critical in areas implying the development of psych-
omotor skills, such as medicine [Adesoye et al. 2021]. Academics have
no doubts that the trend for digitalization of education will persist in
post-pandemic reality, yet it will shift toward blended learning formats
[Hiep-Hung, Tien-Thi-Hanh 2020; Osman 2020].
International reports provide quite a brief overview of learning
disruption and the reproduction of inequality in education during the
pandemic, giving the most basic recommendations on providing so-
cial and digital support to vulnerable social groups.
Academic researchers investigate the factors spurring the repro-
duction of educational inequality during the pandemic, paying spe-
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