UNESCO estimates that around 1.5 billion children were unable to attend school in the spring of 2020. Closed schools mean lost learning, lower skills and reduced life chances and wellbeing. A strategy for closing this learning gap needs to be rapid, school-based rather than online, and provided in addition to regular school. Given the size of the learning gap, […] … learn more→

When the pandemic brought an immediate halt to all forms of in-person academic meetings and conferences earlier this year, we initially thought it was a temporary blip. It never occurred to us that our old habits of travelling to far-flung parts of the world, meeting up with friends and colleagues, and exchanging results and gossip […] … learn more→

Covid-19 hits for the second time in less than a year. And it does so with special force in Europe and Spain. New measures to avoid contagions are put in place and the shadow of a new home confinement flies. In the midst of this situation a question arises: Will the schools close? There is no clear position […] … learn more→

A decree dated August 11 of this year breaks with the basic principle of recruiting heads of secondary schools for more than two centuries: that of “esprit de corps” for an institution called first “Instruction. public ”then“ National education ”. Clearly, until now, it was necessary to have worked in education, or come from category A of […] … learn more→

The education minister for Wales, Kirsty Williams, has announced that Welsh school pupils will not take GCSE and A-level exams in 2021. Instead, externally set and marked classroom assessments, which can be taken within a broad window of time, will be used to grade students. Scotland has already made a similar decision for for its National 5 assessments taken […] … learn more→

Dropping out is a considerable social problem (it affects more than 100,000 young people in France). This phenomenon worsened with the confinement of spring 2020 which helped to weaken the links between the school and a certain number of students. The insights into the possible causes of this phenomenon are manifold. At the risk of oversimplifying, it can be argued […] … learn more→

As people moving across territorial borders continues to drive globalization, our society needs to reflect on the linguistic identities of students who are learning English and French, Canada’s two official languages. In language classrooms, where English as a Second Language (ESL) and French as a Second Language (FSL) programs reflect Canada’s bilingual mandate, how we teach languages has […] … learn more→

The importance of higher education for the growth and development of society is generally accepted. But openness and access to education for all is essential to maximise its benefits. Leaders in higher education must be ready to examine what it will take to achieve this. What do we mean by open access? Higher education should […] … learn more→

#AcWriMo2020, like all of its predecessors, works on the assumption that giving priority to writing during this one month of November sets up, or re-sets, a regular writing habit. #AcWriMo also suggests that you set writing goals and make sure that you are held accountable for them. Writing goals vary. Writing goals generally are of five […] … learn more→

To borrow a well-known aphorism, one of the first casualties of a pandemic is the truth. More precisely, the bending of language by university managers to suit their desired goals in the face of Covid-19 is where the line between truth and falsehood has been blurred. Language matters in a pandemic because it can have […] … learn more→