Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Education: Lesson Learned, Future Development and Change

Dear Colleagues,

Since the turn of the century, the chaotic, turbulent, and changing environments in which we live have become the new normal (Lawrence 2013). Even within this context, the COVID-19 pandemic, with its lasting effects, is an extreme condition, lying outside the realm of the new-normal expectations. While education worldwide was already facing multiple crises, this extreme condition has drastically affected education systems all over the world, with governments shutting down campuses and in many cases moving abruptly to online teaching and learning. In many countries, schools were amongst the first institutions to close and the last to reopen (Reimers 2022). According to UNESCO (2020), full or partial school closures interrupted the education of around 1.6 billion learners, having differential effects on different learners across the globe. Without exception, the pandemic has impacted all levels of education and every aspect of school life. This has also put many of the Sustainable Development Goals in jeopardy, which will probably impact education in expected and unexpected ways for years to come (INEE 2020).

Even within this extreme condition, education did not cease to exist. Throughout the world, we have witnessed many adaptation efforts to create educational environments where students and teachers can interact. The extent to which these solutions are effective, or have reached learners from different social, economical, geographical or technological backgrounds will (and should) be studied in depth in months and years to come.

COVID-19 presents us with a timely opportunity to take stock of the educational changes that have occurred and their impact on different aspect of the lives of students and teachers. It is also a chance to reconceptualize and reconfigure educational practices, including reflections on potentially more equitable and accessible futures. Therefore, Sustainability seeks papers for a Special Issue titled: “Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on education: Lesson learned, future development and change”. This Special Issue invites a wide range of contributions that provide critical reflection on changes and educational challenges associated with COVID-19, including short and longer term impacts, what has been learnt as well as pedagogical, curricular, and policy implications. Contributions can be in the form of empirical, applied and theoretical research papers, critical practice-based reflections, case studies and (auto)ethnographic accounts. The papers presented in this Special Issue are intended to act as valuable resources in the immediate future for academics, practitioners as well as educational policy descision makers, that could influence future educational planing and practice.

Sustainability, the Special Issue on Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on Education: Lesson Learned, future development and change, welcomes papers that focus on, but are not limited to, the following topics:

• The teaching profession: Teaching, leading, learning and being accountable during and post pandemic.
• Post-pandemic emerging forms of educational practice (at all levels of education).
• Partnerships and collaborations within education to address impacts of the pandemic, innovations and knowledge exchange activities.
• Pandemic preparedness, mitigation, and response in education systems.
• Innovative practices promoted by the pandemic to be continued post pandemic.
• Forms and changes in evaluation with post-pandemic implications.
• Best practices and innovations during and post pandemic. 
• Effects on and changes of teaching materials, curricula, and learning materials.
• Pandemic effects, development and change in relation to sustainablity development goals.
• Differences between cultural groups or impact of COVID-19 pandemic on different cultural groups.

Prof. Dr. Linor L. Hadar
Dr. Ilana Paul-Binyamin
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• education
• curriculum
• pedagogy
• educational practice
• teaching
• teaching profession
• diversity
• cultural characteristics