Convenors: Melanie Ehren and Sally Rosscornes
As the global education sector emerges from the current pandemic and reflects on its priorities, there is an imperative to build back better. Faced with a decline in aid commitments and pressure on national education budgets, together with reports of increasing inequality in education, how should the international community and national governments respond?
We welcome submissions which address the governance of education and training systems and how formal and informal structures and arrangements promote the effectiveness and improvement of learning, health and wellbeing of practitioners, children, young people and their families. We take a holistic view of education systems and will consider papers which cover both formal, compulsory and post-secondary education and training, as well as informal arrangements for learning and development in the community, in work settings and beyond. Governance can include state-level coordination, and also other arrangements to provide for, and improve learning, such as through school-to-school collaboration, or arrangements involving multiple governmental and non-governmental actors, including the private sector. We welcome submissions which present quantitative and qualitative analysis with a strong linkage to the public policy literature and the most recent academic debates on governance and power dynamics. Papers can be on single national contexts, but comparative studies are also welcome. Examples of topics and questions to be considered include:
- The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on governance, power and planning, both nationally and globally – how has it changed systems, priorities and resource allocation for delivery and for research? What are the implications and what more needs to change?
- Are the education focussed SDGs still realisable? If not, how should they be adapted?
- Planning for crises: how can resilience be built in fragile systems?
- Expanding use of technology – how does it both enable and restrict equitable systems?
- Relationships and influence in education policy and practice: who holds the power in relations between government bodies and more widely between stakeholders in education and training? How can effective collaboration be fostered?
- Protection and wellbeing of learners and educators – where do responsibility and accountability sit?