COVID-19 tests the resilience of higher education

COVID-19 has delivered a major shock to our societies and has clearly disrupted higher education globally. Having passed through the immediate response stage, it is now time to reflect on how prepared higher education systems were to respond to the crisis, how resilient they are and what lessons we have been learned that can be taken into the future.

A recent Strategic Debate, hosted by the UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP-UNESCO), addressed this theme with panellists Hilligje van’t Land, secretary general of the International Association of Universities (IAU); NV Varghese, vice-chancellor of the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration and the founding director of the Centre for Policy Research in Higher Education in India; and Francisco Marmolejo, education advisor of the Qatar Foundation and former global higher education coordinator at the World Bank.

Together, they explored the concept of resilience in higher education in relation to the COVID-19 crisis.

Can we really plan for a COVID-style crisis?

Resilience is a notion that lies at the centre of how universities address COVID-19, as it involves the ability of higher education systems, institutions and the community to prepare for, adapt and respond to a crisis. But how resilient were higher education institutions at the onset of the pandemic? And has the crisis actually strengthened their resilience?

The panellists’ views confirmed that COVID-19 caught most higher education systems off-guard, resulting in a serious disruption of teaching, learning and research globally.

Van’t Land presented the findings of the IAU’s global survey on the initial impact of COVID-19 on higher education institutions, highlighting the difficulty they faced organising teaching and learning online, student mobility and cross-institutional collaboration during the first months of the pandemic.

She said: “Among the challenges brought about by COVID-19, we saw a financial crisis, a participation crisis, increasing inequality, but, at the same time, we could also see that universities participated in the design of solutions to the pandemic.”

Equity concerns

During this unprecedented time, higher education institutions have had to adapt to what many call the ‘new normal’. The panellists argued that, in the face of the digital divide and access inequality, the ‘new normal’ is different across both countries and systems.

In fact, Marmolejo said he was convinced that “the ‘old normal’ in higher education carried a large number of deficiencies and unresolved problems and that many of them had been exposed and exacerbated during the crisis and will become more acute in the post-pandemic situation”.

The pandemic affects students from deprived backgrounds the most. Many higher education systems still suffer the consequences of the pandemic, with 40% of students lacking access to online higher education internationally, either due to poor internet connectivity or a lack of digital infrastructure.

Varghese shared the experience of Indian students who missed midday meals when schools were closed and did not have a place to go when college hostels were shut down. Often, they could not even go home as transportation was not functioning and the whole country was under lockdown.

Since many of the facilities and university campuses were forced to close, higher education institutions that relied on student and hostel fees as their sources of income experienced a decline in revenues. In addition, higher education institutions experienced severe budget cuts as students demanded a fees refund, claiming that online education was lacking the social component of face-to-face education.

Opportunities are as numerous as challenges

The crisis has revealed the fragilities in our higher education systems, but it has also illuminated numerous opportunities. In the view of the panellists, these are important constituents of resilience. Indeed, very few higher education institutions had pre-existing capacities to launch a crisis response immediately – these capacities needed to be developed.

Higher education institutions had to invest heavily in the development of digital infrastructure, teacher training, student services and robust IT support.

Higher education institutions incorporated more flexible methods of designing and delivering content which increased access to higher education for many students. Now more learners can benefit from open online learning opportunities. Learners, educators and researchers are connecting through these platforms more frequently and are finding new ways of interacting.

Yet, there is still a lot of concern about the experience that online learning provides for students and staff. As Varghese noted: “Online education cannot be reduced to a mere digital transaction of curriculum. That misses the learning experience based on social interaction.”

The pandemic has also brought about change and opportunities and, for example, led to management and leadership transformation and a change in research practice. When asked in a poll what they consider the most important factors that can enhance the resilience of higher education institutions, 72% of the Strategic Debate’s audience – from across the world – said they were leadership and communication.

The largest social experiment of our lives

COVID-19 tests the resilience of higher education. As Marmolejo observed: “We are living in the largest social experiment of our lives”. We need to take this opportunity to learn from the crisis and to respond and engage together in the future. In the view of the three panellists, innovation, flexibility and collaboration are key to advancing higher education in the post-pandemic era.

First, innovation is necessary to find new ways of leading higher education institutions through the present situation. In the words of Marmolejo, new higher education leaders should be “bolder and more ambitious, but also aspirational and inspirational”.

Second, flexibility is needed in finding new approaches to teaching and learning and creating more flexible pathways for students to pursue learning. Varghese stated: “A bricks and mortar system cannot any longer be the main option of the future.”

Lastly, innovation and flexibility can only be achieved if there is collaboration between higher education institutions. This is necessary to build trust among higher education institutions and to create a dialogue between all the stakeholders to create more resilient higher education systems.

For Van’t Land, it is essential for higher education institutions “to collaborate and exchange at the institutional, national and international levels, to make sure that our future [is shaped] together.”

Dr Michaela Martin is a programme specialist at the UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP-UNESCO) and Uliana Furiv is an associate project officer in the IIEP Research and Development Team. Watch the video of IIEP-UNESCO’s Strategic Debate here.