Compiled by Arathi Sriprakash

What ideas inspire and challenge your thinking in Comparative and International Research in Education? 

Here is a list of books that have animated some of us at CIRE. These are a selection of books that we’ve found exciting for our scholarship, or that we are reading at the moment, or that are on our never-ending wish-lists.

A quick glance and it’s clear that there are so many ideas and resources that can be brought to our shared interest in issues of social, environmental and epistemic justice in education.  

We’d love to hear what you are reading over the summer – please leave your suggestions and thoughts in the comment box below!

• Sara Ahmed: Living a Feminist Life
• Ronald Niezen: Truth and Indignation
• Adom Getachew: World Making After Empire
• Frank Wilderson: Afropessimism
• María Puig de la Bellacasa: Matters of Care  
• Donna Haraway: Staying with the Trouble
• Sheila Jasanoff: The Ethics of Invention
• Kate Raworth: Doughnut Economics
• Toni Morrison: Mouth Full of Blood
• Sarah Sharma: In the Meantime
• Jenny Andersson: The Future of the World
• Sylvia Walby Theorizing Violence
• Charles Mills: Black Rights / White Wrongs
• Kevin Myers: Struggles for a Past
• Alexander Zevin: Liberalism at Large: The World According to the Economist
• Deborah Youdell and Martin Lindley: Biosocial Education
• Elizabeth Jelin: State Repression and the Struggle for Memory
• Martha Albertson Fineman and Estelle Zinsstag: Feminist Perspectives on Transitional Justice
• Nicole Seymour:  Bad Environmentalism
• Amitav Ghosh: The Great Derangement
• Jane Jacobs: The Death and Life of Great American Cities
• Binyamin Appelbaum: The Economists’ Hour: False Prophets, Free Markets, and the Fracture of Society
• Pamina Firchow: Reclaiming Everyday Peace: Local Voices in Measurement and Evaluation After War
• Erik Malewski and Nathalia Jaramillo: Epistemologies of Ignorance in Education
• Bonnie Honig: Public Things: Democracy in Disrepair
• Lisa Lowe: The Intimacies of Four Continents
• Jared Diamond: Upheaval: How Nations Cope with Crisis and Change
• Hartmut Rosa:  Resonance: a sociology of our relationship to the world 

 

Also … join us for three reading events this week and the next!

• Tuesday, 7th July, 11am – Critical Ideas from the Periphery are hosting a reading group session on ecofeminism. Details here.
• Thursday, 9th July, 6pm – Decoloniality and comparative education reading series on Vickers’ (2020) response to Takayama et al. (2017). Info available here.
• Thursday, 16th July, 5pm. Book launch Education for Sustainable Development in the Postcolonial World: Towards a Transformative Agenda for Africa by CIRE co-director Professor Leon Tikly; the event features guest speakers Emily Echessa (Save the Children), Professor Heila Lotz-Sisitka (Rhodes University, South Africa), Dr Zibah Nwako (University of Bristol, UK), and Professor Arathi Sriprakash (University of Cambridge, UK). Sign up here.

In this write up from Leanne Cameron and Martin Preston, we summarise the conversation from the first in a series of reading group sessions around decoloniality and the field of comparative and international education (CIE). This first session (held 25 June) was focused on the 2017 article “Toward a Postcolonial Comparative and International Education” by Takayama, Sriprakash, and Connell. We were fortunate to be joined by Arathi Sriprakash, one of the authors.

In starting off the discussion, Robin provided some contextual information about the article itself: the article introduced a special edition on “Contesting Coloniality: Rethinking Knowledge Production and Circulation in Comparative and International Education” in Comparative Education Review. He noted that it is rare to have a special edition in CER – they occur about every six years – and since CER is printed through a non-profit press, they have a set number of pages and thus journal space is “a finite resource that people are fighting for.”

CIE can be viewed as a field dominated by white voices and perhaps more conservative viewpoints. He provided the example of AERA (the American Educational Research Association): the theme of social justice runs as a distinct thread through all of their work. Even a casual glance at the website indicates their celebration of Juneteenth, the African-American holiday in celebration of the emancipation of slaves. CIE can perhaps be seen to function as a space of ‘white flight’ away from more progressive, reflexive scholarship.

Robin provided some further context around CIE journals across the field, noting that every other major journal has a white male editor, with the exception of Compare, which has a female co-editor. It was unprecedented, then, for this special edition to be headed by a diverse editorial team. The special edition has become known as the ‘blue issue’ (which Robin noted reminds him of the Beatle’s White Album) and Takayama et al, as the introduction to that issue, is the most downloaded article from CER in 2019 by a factor of three. The second most downloaded article, he noted, was a review of the children’s film Zootopia, where the authors analysed the use of racist tropes for the animal characters. Robin argued that this demonstrated the sort of appetite for critical, decolonial work within the journal and the field at large.

The idea of an ‘appetite’ was also broached by Arathi. Leanne and Martin, as PhD students and early career researchers, asked the more senior academics for advice about taking on work. Especially in the era of coronavirus and economic downturn, what are the ethical concerns in taking contract work or jobs from institutions like the World Bank, whose work may perpetuate the epistemic hierarchies that Takayama et al. (2017) seek to dismantle? Arathi (and several other academics) advised that ECRs take work wherever they can get it, but we can still look to “carve out epistemic communities within your institution.” In these epistemic communities, you can create spaces for discussion and debate – to build coalitions and bring people together. “There is an appetite for it,” she told the group. “Everything begins with ideas.”

Leanne posed a question meant to provoke: in the article, the authors expose the racist viewpoints and expression of CIE ‘father’ Isaac L. Kandel. He was instrumental in pushing the discipline to “provide fully contextual knowledge of other countries’ educational practices, especially because superficial ac- counts of them are often mobilized to justify policy options at home” (Takayama et al., 2017, p. S2). However, he also demonstrated his beliefs of Western superiority, the ‘importance’ of the colonial project, and white supremacy in statements such as “the education of backward or indigenous people in colonial dependencies is beginning to receive attention to a degree never manifested before” (p. S9). So, Leanne asked, what are we supposed to do with this history in CIE? Can we simply argue that Kandel (and others) was a ‘product of his era’, a response favoured by apologists for slave masters and the like?

Arathi pointed to the work of Cambridge academic Priyamvada Gopal whose recent book Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent demonstrates who is erased when the narrative focuses only on the colonizer – or, in the case of Kandel, on Eurocentric education scholarship. “Who is erased when the narrative is told that way? Saying simply that he was ‘a product of his time’ erases those structures.” It is a question of epistemic politics in deciding who gets included and excluded, and these are active politics: those voices did exist, but who today do we count as ‘knowledge’ from that era? Who is in the room, and who is allowed to be in the room?  Rafael noted as well that “there are spaces to look back at figures [like Kandel] but that kind of history is one that is relevant as far as it is informing what we are doing now. Where are we going?” Looking back to dissenting, ‘hidden’ voices emerged as a concrete step that CIE as a discipline can take in moving the debate forward.

Several other ideas were put forth as ways to move forward as a field. Terra suggested that we continue to focus on writing blogs in multiple languages (as with this example from Julia Paulson’s interview with Arturo Charria Hernández, written in both Spanish and English). We can do small things, Terra advised, in order to “show that we are not comfortable with English dominance and what that says about knowledge.” She also noted the burden that falls especially on American/European researchers and white people in the field: “we have to welcome not being welcome.” As researchers, whilst we can look to work with communities of epistemic resistance, we don’t belong in every space – there are places where we need to sit out. Just as colonialism expertly abused nations and people for raw materials and data, diverse epistemologies are also not simply “data mines for the accumulation of knowledge and the development of theory in the global North” (Takayama et al., 2017, p. S3).

The conversation also included the concept of intellectual and epistemic reparations as a form of reparative justice. Dismantling existing epistemic hierarchies is, in fact, a form of repair as it corrects what has previously been built on violence and prevents the reproduction of those same damaging dynamics. Material and financial reparations in larger community spaces are gaining some traction in this social moment, but as intellectuals, we can act concretely in our own spaces. Arathi asked that we think about what knowledge has been denied or silenced. How can we give voice – not in a paternalistic sense, but a critical, uncomfortable, and meaningful way – to diverse epistemologies? How can we think differently about dominant knowledge to see where that knowledge has become redundant or not feasible?

In moving forward with this series of reading groups, we discussed the possibility of collaborative writing to consider the future of the field. Terra suggested an approach used in the January TESF workshops, where visual notetakers asked participants three questions: what do you dread? What do you dream? How do you realise that dream? We will take these three questions forward, thinking around our dreads, dreams, and paths to realisation for the field of CIE when we meet again.

 

Next meeting: Thursday, 9 July from 6:00-7:15pm on Zoom. We will look at the Vickers’ (2020) response to the Takayama et al. (2017) paper. Please sign up here. 

Vickers, E. (2020). Critiquing coloniality, ‘epistemic violence’ and western hegemony in comparative education–the dangers of ahistoricism and positionality. Comparative Education, 56(2), 165-189.

By Professor Robin Shields

In Paul Beatty’s novel The Sellout, the protagonist laments that his town of Dickens has lost its status as an official city. The fictitious city, based closely on Compton in Southern California, becomes absorbed into the greater city of Los of Angeles. The erased city limits of Dickens come to represent the paradoxical status of race, which is both a ubiquitous feature of life yet also a category that is not officially recognized in a “colour-blind” society.

The weeks following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis have witnessed two competing discourses on racism in British Universities. On the one hand, universities have been quick to vocalize their support for the Black Lives Matter movement, advocating racial equality in more assertive and urgent terms than in the past (e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4). On the other hand, critical commentators have rightly pointed to their poor record of supporting racial equality in practice (e.g. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11). This is evident in the lack of Black members of staff, who comprise just 2.1% of UK university staff but 13% of the population. Universities that truly value Black lives would ensure that they are well-represented and empowered in the organization, but the online movement #BlackInIvory highlights experiences of persistent marginalization.

In response, most universities would point to hiring policies that specifically promote equality, diversity and inclusion. Such policies protect against discrimination by ensuring data on applicants’ social backgrounds (including race, gender, disability, sexual orientation and other protected characteristics) is processed separately from the application and by specifically welcoming applicants who hold these “protected characteristics.” Universities could therefore claim that the underrepresentation of Black staff is not due to hiring practices, because these practices do not consider race and therefore cannot be racist.

However, these practices also closely resemble what Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (15) terms colour-blind racism, spurious attempts to achieve racial equality by suppressing acknowledgment of racialized histories and identities. Like Beatty’s town of Dickens, color-blind racism erases the city limits, but the landscape remains unchanged. While the categories of race are removed from legitimate discourse, the experiences and standards of dominant race groups remain the norm and expectation in public institutions. This means that students and staff at Universities must confront racist and discriminatory treatment, assumption and expectations, but they are also denied recourse to the terms that would articulate their oppression.

Instead of maintaining a “colour-blind” approach to hiring, British universities could do much more to embody and promote racial justice in their hiring practices. The Equalities and Diversities Act of 2010 allows employers to give preference to under-represented groups in hiring, provided that the candidates are equally qualified (Part 11, Ch 2.4, also 16). In practice, universities tend to cite practices such as targeted advertising or statements welcoming underrepresented groups as positive action (e.g. 17, 18, 19, 20), although the Equalities and Diversities Act instead more directly identifies contracts of employment to equally qualified, applicants from under-represented groups (Part 11, Ch 2.5). Thus, it seems that universities are watering down the intentions of “positive action” and also under-utilizing the means to achieve equitable representation of Black staff provided by current legislation.

A better step to addressing systemic racism in hiring would be to embed contributions to diversity as a priority in appointment criteria. For example, requiring candidates to demonstrate their accomplishments contributing to diversity and inclusion, with the same weight and objectivity that research and teaching are considered, through a written statement would give meaningful recognition to the additional work and challenges that most academics from Black and other minority groups have been required to undertake as part of institutional survival (21, 22). Well-evidenced statements of contributions to diversity are already a standard aspect of academic hiring at many elite universities in other countries.

The title of a report by the Higher Education Policy Institute – The White Elephant in the Room –  highlights the extent to which the colour-blind approach embraced in British higher education is no longer tenable. However, progress against the report’s top two recommendations, that universities should participate in the sector-wide Race Equality Charter and facilitate more conversations about race, is minimal. More than four years after its inception, only 14 universities have received a bronze level award from the Race Equality Charter, with no awards at higher levels. Writing in the HEPI report, Kalwant Bhopal notes “there is little or no imperative to shift the focus to uncomfortable conversations about race and racism in higher education,” because, unlike Athena SWAN certification, the Race Equality Charter is not required by research councils.

The white elephant in the room also highlights an important aspect of universities; they tend to think of themselves as neutral rather than white spaces, despite the many signs of white dominance. A first step in moving from colour-blind racism to an anti-racist university will be to come to terms with this whiteness, to listen to the experiences of Black academics and other academics of colour (23, 24), to unlearn current practices and to make universities a space that recognizes and values the experiences of Black academics and professionals and ensures their representation as colleagues in universities.

Thanks to Julia Paulson, Deborah Brewis, Ugbaad Aidid and Lizzi Milligan for feedback on a draft of this post

By Angelika Peplinski, Liz Barrett, Muassua David, Natalia Hayes, Gaukhar Kenzhebayeva and Collet Mweene

This blog is an output from a reading group on climate activism that ran from February to March 2020 as part of the Masters unit ‘Education, Peace and Sustainable Development.’

On the 28^th February over 15,000 people gathered in Bristol to hear Greta Thunberg and take part in the Bristol Youth Strike 4 Climate. Despite the miserable weather, Greta’s presence inspired thousands of people to join the collective effort to tackle the ecological crisis and hold politicians and leaders accountable for their lack of action.

Marching up Park Street following Greta’s talk (photo credit: Aminath Shiyama)

Our capitalist economy has often led us to believe that “the structural problems of an exploitative system – poverty, joblessness, poor health, lack of fulfilment – [are] in fact a personal deficiency.” We need to be vegan, we need to reduce plastic, we need to use more public transport, we need to fly less: the list is long. While individual action is important, it is fossil fuel corporations that need to be held accountable. The Guardian reports that “a hundred companies alone are responsible for an astonishing 71%” of carbon emissions since 1988.” Movements like FridaysForFuture or Extinction Rebellion counteract the neoliberal ideology of individualism by collective action as it is “only mass movements that have the power to alter the trajectory of the climate crisis.” However, this idea is not new.

Indigenous resistance is rooted in collectivism. Their “systems of sustainability were destroyed precisely because they were incompatible with systems of exploitation and extraction” (Niheu 2019: 124-125) emblematic of neoliberal ideology.  Via nonviolent collective action, many indigenous communities have sought repatriation: “Indigenous people are the guardians of ancestral knowledge that draws from the environment the solutions of everyday life” (Ibrahim 2019: 56). Therefore, climate justice and indigenous rights interlink. However, this is often not recognised in mainstream media.

Media coverage of the climate emergency focusses mainly on the Global North. It depicts climate activism as led by mainly white, middle class people and thus neglects the experiences of the Global South. Uganda climate activist Vanessa Nakate “was cropped out of a press photo in Davos” when posing alongside white climate activists, including Greta Thunberg. This incident illustrates the connection of climate justice and social justice. Issues of racism need to be addressed as the Global South is experiencing immediate consequences of the ecological crisis. Lake Chad, which used to cover 25,00 square kilometres, now only covers about 2,500. Indigenous communities “have lost 90 per cent of this resource so essential for the life of one of the poorest regions in the world” (Ibrahim 2019: 54). Almost 52 million people in Africa have become food insecure due to the effects of climate change, yet the media often choses to ignore these stories. The irony is not only that the Global South remains unheard while they are the most impacted, but that they also contribute the least amount of the global greenhouse emissions.

The lack of recognition of ethnic minorities and their voices has been an issue for centuries and right now this ignorance poses an immediate danger. With the ongoing disappearance of indigenous knowledge, “it is a part of the memory of humanity that is threatened with extinction” (Ibrahim 2019: 56). More than ever, is it important to include, recognize and represent minorities in discussions regarding climate change and climate activism. Nature is the work tool for many indigenous communities. Hence, their expertise is needed to protect nature. “Indigenous peoples do not want to be silent victims of climate change. They are ready to share their traditional knowledge, and to (re)teach humankind how to live in harmony with nature” (Ibid. 57). It is easy for the Global North to dismiss climate change as an abstract future threat, but activism has the potential to make unheard voices heard: “In the southern narratives, we see how hope, guilt, and anger combine to avert the paralyzing effects of acute fear” (Kleres & Wettergren 2017: 517). The Global North has a responsibility to embrace these feelings in a collective effort to tackle climate change. Activism can pave the way for climate and social justice, but only if we recognise the voices that up to now we have chosen to ignore.

 

References

Ibrahim, H. O. (2019). Indigenous people and the fight for survival. In Extinction Rebellion (ed.). This Is Not a Drill: An Extinction Rebellion Handbook. Penguin Books. pp. 54–57.

Kleres, J., & Wettergren, A. (2017). Fear, hope, anger, and guilt in climate activism. Social Movement Studies, 16(5), 507-519. doi:10.1080/14742837.2017.1344546

Niheu, K. (2019). Indigenous resistance in an era of climate change crisis. Radical History Review, 133, 117-130. Available here.

 

By Dr Janet Orchard

In this post, Janet speaks with her friend and colleague Dr Liz Jackson from the University of Hong Kong regarding the situation in Hong Kong, where protests and Covid lockdown have marked life in the past months. 

I enjoyed catching up with good friend and academic colleague Liz Jackson on Skype this week in anticipation of her key note address to the first ever online University of Bristol School of Education Doctoral Conference on 5^th-6^th June 2020, which will bring together members of our doctoral community from Hong Kong as well as Bristol and all other parts of the world. You can find out more about Liz’s keynote here; the abstract for her talk is featured at the end of the post.

Liz and I haven’t see each other for months now; normally we would catch up in person three or four times each year; however, with all non-essential travel into Hong Kong from the UK suspended indefinitely for the time being, following the Covid outbreak, we decided to catch up via Skype instead. Our conversation continued in between opening our respective front doors to receive home deliveries: life under lockdown across two continents.

I was keen to know more from Liz about a recent piece she was invited to write on the impact of Covid for teaching and learning in Hong Kong for Postdigital Science and Education (read Liz’s powerful account here). Liz found it impossible to share about Covid in Hong Kong, she explained, without first setting the wider scene of the anti-extradition law protests in Hong Kong over the past year, one in a series of recent movements ongoing in Hong Kong related to Hong Kong’s status and the ‘one country, two systems’ arrangement with Mainland China. The Covid response in Hong Kong is certainly related to the past experience with SARS, as several commentators have indicated; however, Liz maintains that the virus also struck a society that was already in crisis. The rest of the world has been rocked by Covid, but Hong Kong society was already in shock, profoundly shaped by months of experiencing precariousness and instability, both politically and socially; in other words, putting it crudely perhaps, just another shock.

At a personal level, Liz told me about friends and colleagues around the world she has spoken to subsequently, as the pandemic has spread. She mentions her family and friends in the US in the piece. Fortunately, they are all fine and fairly confident that they had Covid, but due to lack of testing they do not know. They express tell-tale signs of shock, Liz observes, such as making energetic reactions and responses to challenges, trying to fix things, save the day, and work it all out. She added:

I personally wanted to appeal to them, and defend myself, in terms of moving more slowly and taking things easy. Catching me at this confused international moment, the article reflects on my experience with Covid as part of a broader experience of social crisis in Hong Kong, also suggesting the need for more international awareness of our connectedness. As these crises impact us all, even if we are not personally affected, understanding crisis and contingency requires new ways of thinking about social relationships and civic engagement.

In Hong Kong, meanwhile, there have been very few new cases in the past few months which means that as socialising ceases to be a taboo, the protests are back. Liz worries that political instability will be a key feature of the ‘new normal’ going forward, for Hong Kong and for the UK, US, and other societies around the globe. This is being overlooked, I reflect afterwards, amidst all the concern for ‘listening to the science’ by the dominant, but inherently unstable, policy discourse.

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To sign up for the School of Education virtual doctoral conference (5-6 June) and see Liz’s keynote, please see this Eventbrite page.

Liz’s keynote: “Ignoring History and Facts: The Ongoing Politicisation of Hong Kong Education”

Summary: Over the last tumultuous decade in Hong Kong, the topic of education has been in the front and centre stage of controversy and media coverage. As youth in secondary schools led the Umbrella Movement (2014-2015), while universities became battle grounds of the more recent anti-extradition protests (starting in 2019), popular discourse by politicians and others in media blamed the education system, anti-Mainland educators, and Liberal Studies, for radicalising and liberalising youth. While this message is spread time and again, it puts educators in a nearly impossible position. And it flies in the face of best evidence, based on academic research, about education’s role, historically and today, in Hong Kong.

In this lecture, Jackson will discuss her experiences of investigating Hong Kong education at multiple levels in relation to its civic and politicising influence. This includes discrete studies of the history of civic education in Hong Kong, student experiences with the Umbrella Movement, and research on the nature of the social studies curriculum in Hong Kong, including Liberal Studies. Offering a historical overview of this topic, Jackson also reflects on the challenges of doing research in a politicised climate. This lecture thus aims to offer both an academic analysis of political and civic education in Hong Kong, in relation to civic engagement—as well as personal reflections and insights, on the role of academic researchers to study important social events, thorns and all.

About Liz Jackson: Liz Jackson is currently an Associate Professor of Education at the University of Hong Kong and Director of its Comparative Education Research Centre. President of the Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia, one of the largest and most international academic associations of philosophy of education, Liz has published over 100 journal articles, book chapters, and books in the areas of philosophy of education, global studies in education, and multicultural and civic education. Her fourth book, Protesting Education and Identity in Hong Kong, will be based on her work over the last 8 years studying curriculum and youth civic engagement in Hong Kong. In September 2020, Liz will be taking up a new role as a Professor of Education at the prestigious Education University of Hong Kong.

From the 13^th of March, the Rwandan government has suspended all institutions where people gather in large groups: as with many other nations around the world, this is a core precaution to stop the spread of COVID-19. Rwanda was the first sub-Saharan nation to mandate a full lock-down, with borders closed to anyone except Rwandans returning home. Because of quick action, the nation has managed to limit the spread with no deaths to date. Medical officers report that the existing protective equipment and ventilators are sufficient for the time being, but medical facilities would be stretched to a breaking point if the caseload were to accelerate. President Paul Kagame has warned of the long-term impact that the virus will have on the African economy and suggested $100 billion as the figure required to prevent mass deprivation.

In this blog, Leanne Cameron interviews two Rwandan teachers, Cleophace Nzabagerageza and Laurien Ikuzwe. They comment on changes at their respective institutions and those that have occurred throughout Rwanda since the lockdown.

LC: How are you feeling about everything that is happening? Are you staying busy?

Cleophace: Physically I am feeling well. And in this lockdown period every day I take approximately four hours to read different resources about the subjects that I teach (English, Kinyarwanda, and ICT); I look at books and materials from the internet to try and improve my understanding. But I am worried about when this pandemic will stop so that we can go back to school. Due to the speed and the number of people who are sick from or spreading COVID-19, different counties have taken measures to wipe it out, so I am concerned for people who are suffering. But about my career as a teacher I am worried whether the students will forget things that they have studied which would require me to begin from basics. Nobody knows when the lockdown will end and we will return to normal.

Cleophace delivering a motivational speech at his school pre-COVID

Laurien: This COVID-19 period has been a time of reflection to me about my profession. I’ve been reflecting on my work as a teacher, asking myself; why I do what I do? What kind of a teacher was I? What kind of a teacher I want to be? How does my teaching matter in the lives of my kids and the community?

In this period, I see the power of effectively-shared knowledge. My prior teaching was mainly philosophic and followed these steps: acquisition, understanding, application and becoming. But as we have found ourselves in this trying situation, I went quickly to check on my students (especially those who are my Facebook friends) and asking them how they are coping with the situation. I realized the power of connection and see how my job has impacted my students in many ways. Considering what I see around me, I think it gives me opportunity for understanding social cohesion and what life means in a community. I am learning that life is about understanding one another and seeing that life is relative. Whatever is happening to one might happen to another. Thus, it reminds me to dive into how we should build a common life together.

LC: Tell me about your students. How are they coping with the lockdown?

Cleophace: My school is a private technical and vocational education and training (TVET) institution working under the control of Rwanda Polytechnic with the Workplace Development Authority at the head head. It is a coed school with male and female students from both local and urban areas in attendance; my students are 15 to 19 years old. They are working towards a TVET certificate of completion in the trades of  Motor Vehicle Mechanics and Tailoring. I talk to my students regularly through social media such as WhatsApp and Facebook, but we also talk on the phone and email as well. They tell me how they feel; many are scared and have lost the hope about when the pandemic will stop to let them go back for their studies.

Laurien: I teach student in Grades 10-12 at a government-aided boarding secondary school. Their ages vary from 15 to 22 and they come from all across the country: from cities, suburbs, and countryside. They all are in scientific studies (STEM), and I teach them English for communication. They have all been sent home.

Laurien at work

LC: Can you talk a little about the situation for primary-aged students? 

Cleophace: Our government has initiated a media programme of teaching via television and radio called Building Learning Foundations Radio and Television Programme; it is delivered in partnership with UKAid. The subjects that are delivered in this radio and television program are examinable in national examinations from lower primary to advanced secondary. For primary students, the subjects of Kinyarwanda, English and Maths* are delivered. For lower secondly, students can learn English, Physics, Chemistry, Maths and Kinyarwanda. For upper secondary, most of the schools use their websites where they post lessons and assignments. The Ministry of Education has also strengthened the program of e-learning so the students can find different resources to help them keep the ‘mood’ of education and learning. Universities are also using e-learning platforms to keep students connected.

But access to the internet and even to power is still a big problem for many Rwandans, especially in the countryside. Many students don’t have a personal computer or smartphone to even access the internet this is a problem especially for students who are in universities. Fortunately, the Ministry of Education have assured those students who aren’t able to follow either radio or e-learning programs that they will go on from where they stopped when schools start again. Further, to facilitate even those students who cannot easily find internet, smart phones and computer, the Rwanda Education Board has initiated a toll free line of *134# where they find some questions to test their knowledge. So the use of those programmes is to keep their mind sharp and occupied but not to replace the classroom.

LC: Do you think your approach to teaching will change in the future due to this period of lockdown? 

Laurien: When it comes to the approach to teaching English language after COVID-19 period, I absolutely think that I will change somewhat due to the lock down. I will adapt to new approaches because it is the first time in my life (maybe for many people) to experience a global and yet local lockdown, I realised education has a reason to be much more contextualized to the real life situation. There are a lot of things to consider in English language teaching (ELT). For instance, we are likely to be persuaded to integrate technology and to use all available digital devices in ELT because the world is becoming more digitized; many jobs from different domains of life have been saved by working at home during COVID-19 due to the support of the internet. For instance, many schools were forced to shift their schooling activities to e-learning, though it has been tough for many. I believe that everything started like this and there is hope that learning and work will continue to be customized.

Cleophace: With this lockdown period, I have enough time to think and reflect about the content that I will deliver whenever we will go back to school. I am preparing and writing clear and relevant notes for content delivery. This will help me to change my teaching style since notes will be prepared in advance; I will be able to engage students in more hands-on learning. I know I will also need to think about different learning theories and try to individualise my teaching strategies.

LC: Do you think this will influence what English language you teach in the future? More vocabulary about viruses and pandemics, maybe?

Laurien: Yes! Now, I think some language items will be added in my ELT: medical vocabulary, and vocabulary for talking about pandemics and epidemics, as you have mentioned. I will also add more work on technology and other necessary language commands.

Cleophace: When we prepare for classes, we go through the line of curriculum that the Ministry of Education has established. But illustrations, examples and explanation together with cross cutting issues are adapted depending on the situation. This means that my teaching will be led by the moral lessons left by this COVID-19 and some unpopular vocabulary items will be retained, and vocabulary around pandemic, lockdown, confinement, outbreak, curfew, etc. will be integrated in the courses that I deliver.

 

*English, mathematics, and all other subjects apart from Kinyarwanda are taught in English for the primary level.

 

Una entrevista entre Julia Paulson de CIRE y Arturo Charria Hernández, Secretario de Educación Municipal de la ciudad de Cúcuta Norte de Santander, Colombia. La entrevista se enfoque en como Arturo y sus colegas están respondiendo a Covid-19. Cúcuta tiene población de mas de 700,000 personas y se ubica en una región que enfrenta retos sociales y educativas desde antes de la crisis de coronavirus. Exploramos también como la emergencia de covid-19 abre preguntas y permite reimaginar la educación y su rol en la transformación social.

The English translation of this blog is available here. 

Foto: Arturo Charria Hernández

JP: ¿Cúcuta  tuvo retos educativos antes de que llego el coronavirus – podrías pintarnos una foto de la zona y la situación educativa?

ACH: Antes de la llegada del coronavirus teníamos retos de carácter institucional como ausencia de docentes, que son adjudicados desde el Ministerio de Educación Nacional. Esto se da por aumento acelerado de matrícula producto de la migración venezolana y estudiantes desplazados del conflicto armado. Adicionalmente, estas poblaciones se concentran en zonas donde no hay mucha infraestructura educativa (colegios) generando desescolarización.

Otro reto es que, aunque la educación es pública, muchos de los servicios se contratan año a año y no se dejaron contratados. Esto implica que algunos servicios como transporte, conectividad o docentes de apoyo en discapacidad no comienzan al tiempo que el inicio de clases. Esto aumenta la brecha en la calidad educativa y en los derechos de los estudiantes.

JP: Y con la llegada de coronavirus, que ha cambiado?

ACH: Ha reflejado retos muy grandes en relación con las condiciones en que viven los estudiantes, porque no sólo no tienen dispositivos tecnológicos apropiados o conectividad, sino espacios físicos para realizar sus actividades. Muchos estudiantes viven en hogares en donde tener una silla y una mesa para hacer la tarea es un lujo con el que no cuentan.

El coronavirus también evidencia la dificultad que tienen docentes para reinventarse en el uso de nuevas tecnologías y ajustarse a la necesidad que vive el sistema educativo. Esto ha permitido importantes discusiones de fondo que antes no se daban: pertinencia de ciertos contenidos, el currículo, la forma en que se evalúa y, especialmente, el valor de los afectivo en la educación.

JP: Como tomaste la decisión de cerrar los colegios y cuáles son las preocupaciones principales que la decisión abre para ti?

ACH: La tranquilidad que debían tener estudiantes, padres de familia y comunidad educativa en general. No teníamos condiciones apropiadas para garantizar la salubridad y eso implica ser prudentes. Era una decisión que debía tomarse a nivel nacional, pero no había línea directa, la tomamos un día antes que el gobierno nacional y creo que eso ayudó a acelerar la decisión desde el ejecutivo.

JP: En Cúcuta , la educación sigue en cuales formas bajo cuarentena? Que están haciendo tu y colegas en la SED, maestros y maestras y familias para crear oportunidades de aprendizaje?

ACH: En  Cúcuta  sigue de manera flexible y en casa. Algunos usan plataformas de las páginas de los colegios, otros usan redes sociales (WhatsApp y Facebook) para el intercambio de información y acompañamiento en tiempo real. También se envía material impreso como guías de autoaprendizaje para quienes tienen dificultades de conectividad. Hemos sacado unas directrices muy claras desde la Secretaría de Educación Municipal de Cúcuta en donde establecemos que lo importante en este momento es el ser y no solo el conocer. Estas orientaciones reflexionan sobre el principio pedagógico de la evaluación en estos tiempos difíciles. Y también orientamos sobre el papel de los padres de familia en este momento que deben estar presente, sin reemplazar totalmente a los docentes. Sabemos que en estos momentos la educación no puede ser una carga emocional para las familias, porque eso puede generar violencia intrafamiliar, depresión, estrés e incluso deserción escolar.

JP: Tus pensamientos sobre la educación y tus prioridades para la educación han cambiado en los recientes semanas y días? Como y porque?

ACH: Definitivamente. Nos ha hecho más humanos. Hemos entendido como nunca la importancia de trabajar lo emocional y lo afectivo, de cuidarnos. Pero también acelerar discusiones de fondo del sistema educativo. ¿De qué sirven tantos temas que ven los estudiantes en sus clases? Las discusiones sobre lo curricular y la evaluación ganan espacios que antes no tenían. Es una oportunidad para dar grandes transformaciones sobre el sentido ético de la educación y sobre lo que significa la escuela en la relación con la vida de una sociedad.

JP: Como te sientes como educador? Encuentras esperanza en algunas lugares o fuentes? Como enfrentas sentimientos de desesperanza?

ACH: Encuentro mucha esperanza. Hay profesores y directivos docentes haciendo cosas maravillosas. Todos nos estamos reinventando para reencontrarnos con los esencial. Cuando se asoma la desesperanza, siempre recuerdo las palabras que me dijo mi esposa un día que fue muy duro: “Esto también pasará”.

Lector, si eres educador o alumn/a y quieres compartir tus experiencias del aprendizaje bajo cuarentena en este blog, por favor contacte julia.paulson@bristol.ac.uk. 

 

This blog post features an interview between CIRE’s Julia Paulson and Arturo Charria Hernández, Municipal Education Secretary in the city of Cúcuta, Colombia. The interview focuses on how Arturo and his colleagues are approaching the educational response to Covid-19 in Cúcuta. The city of over 700,000 people is located in a region which was experiencing considerable social and educational challenges prior to the pandemic. Arturo also discusses if and how the emergency response to the pandemic is raising questions and opening spaces to reimagine education.

La versión del blog en español está aquí.

Arturo Charria Hernández

 

JP: Cúcuta was facing educational challenges prior to the arrival of coronavirus – can you paint us picture of the region and its educational situation?

ACH: Before the arrival of coronavirus, we had institutional problems like a lack of teachers, all of whom are assigned to us by the National Ministry of Education. Our lack of teachers is due to a steep increase in enrolments since we have migrants students arriving in the department from Venezuela, as well as Colombian students arriving due to displacement related to armed conflict. Additionally, these students tend to be concentrated in zones lacking educational infrastructure (schools), which leads to higher numbers of children out of school.

Another challenge is that, although education is public, many of our services are contracted annually and contracts are often delayed. This means that some services like school transport, internet connectivity, o learning support assistants for students with additional needs do not start on time and classes begin without them. This increases inequities in the quality of education and affects the rights of children to receive an education.

JP: What has changed thanks to coronavirus?

ACH: Coronavirus reflects the very challenging conditions that our students live with. It isn’t only that they don’t have access to appropriate technologies or the internet, it is also that they don’t have adequate physical space to carry on with their learning. Many students live in homes where having a table and chair on which to do their schoolwork is a luxury that they don’t have.

Coronavirus also highlights the difficulties that teachers have in suddenly needing to reinvent themselves by using new technologies and adapting to the new needs that the education system presents. This has opened space for important new discussions about issues that weren’t being discussed before, including around educational content, the curriculum, the ways in which learning is evaluated, and, especially, around the value of emotion and care in education.

JP: How did you make the decision to close schools in Cúcuta  and what concerns did the decision open for you?

ACH: We made the decision based on the wellbeing that students, parents and carers, and the educational community in general should have. We didn’t have the appropriate conditions to guarantee people’s health and this implies being prudent. Closing schools was a decision that should have been taken at a national level, but there wasn’t a direct line. We took the decision a day before the national government and I think that this helped to accelerate the decision from the executive.

JP: In what ways does education continue under lockdown in Cúcuta ? What are you and your colleagues in the Education Secretariat, teachers and families doing to ensure that learning continues?

ACH: Education is continuing in a flexible way in homes. Some are using the platforms of school’s websites, others use social media (Facebook and Whatsapp) to share information and support students in real time. We’re also sending printed material guides for independent learning to support those who have difficulties with internet connectivity.

We’ve sent very clear guidance from the Municipal Education Secretariat in which we highlight what is important at this time: that the student as a person rather than the sum of their knowledge. This guidance reflects on the pedagogical principals of evaluation in these difficult times. We also provide guidance on the role of parents, who should be present without totally replacing teachers. We know that at this time, education can’t be an emotional weight for families because this could generate intrafamily violence, depression, stress and even school dropout.

JP: Have your thoughts about the purposes of and priorities for education changed in recent weeks and months? How and why?

ACH: Definitely. These weeks have made us more human. We’ve understood more than ever the importance of working on the emotional and affective, of caring for ourselves. But, we’ve also accelerated fundamental discussions about the educational systems. What is the purpose of so many themes that students cover in their classes? The discussions about the curriculum and assessment are gaining traction that they didn’t have before. This is an opportunity for major transformations around the ethical purposes of education and about what schools signify in the relation to the wider life of a society.

JP: How do you feel as an educator? Where are you finding hope and what do you do when you encounter despair?

ACH: I find a lot of hope. There are teachers and principals who are doing marvelous things. We are all reinventing ourselves to rediscover what is essential. When I do meet despair, I always remember what my wife told on a day that was very hard: ‘this too shall pass’.

Reader, if you are an educator or student and would like to share your experiences learning under lockdown on a CIRE blog, please contact: Julia.paulson@bristol.ac.uk.

By Tania Saeed

This piece originally appeared on Naya Daur.  

 

The response of higher educational institutions in their urgency to transition into the virtual world of teaching during this pandemic on the basis of ensuring that “learning” is not disrupted with the closure of colleges and universities till May 31 exposes the irrelevance of student and teacher experiences in the learning process. The emphasis is essentially on delivery; we need to deliver education to our students, fulfil the requirements of the academic year or semester so that the student does not lose out, thereby fulfilling our duties as providers of education. What is completely lost in this scenario is the reality of a pandemic and its impact on the student and the teacher– not just the physical, emotional, or psychological trauma that comes from members of a family, or neighbours falling sick, but of livelihoods being disrupted as businesses close down, and workers across the country lose their jobs, theirs and their families only means of survival. Students may be taking care of family members, living in precarious conditions, suffering from hunger or living in abusive homes, or even worried about loved ones working in hospitals and clinics. It is in this context that we want to ensure that “learning” as delivered through our educational institutions is not disrupted, where students learn online, and teachers (who may be surviving in similar circumstances) transition into the virtual world for which they have limited training, all the while living through this pandemic.

In the past two weeks a lot has been written on both the need and the limitation of online/virtual/remote teaching in Pakistan. The uncertainty of this pandemic with no end in sight has resulted in educational institutions exploring alternative methods of education, where online teaching seems to be the most viable option. Universities, mostly private that are well resourced are already exploring innovative ways of delivering education during this pandemic. Public sector universities are equally encouraging online classes to ensure the semester continues despite this disruption. The limitation that has rightly been highlighted is one of infrastructure: this ranges from internet access, as evident in the recent protests by students in Wana, to basic issue of electricity and power cuts; lack of trained teachers who themselves may struggle with access to the internet, and the danger of quality (already a problem in the education sector in Pakistan) further deteriorating through online education. The examples shared under the campaign #BoycottOnlineClasses on social media by students and teachers shows the extent of the problem, where the rush in ensuring education is not disrupted seems to be at the expense of students and teachers, rather than for them. The fact that the government has given the option of closing universities till May 31 should be seen as an opportunity to develop a Plan B through collaboration with students and teachers, rather than forcing online education that further compromises quality.

The uncertainty of the pandemic has necessitated the need to consider alternative ways of education delivery, but these cannot be decided through a top-down bureaucratic mechanism when the most integral players in this system are the students and the teachers. Delivery of education is irrelevant if it does not ensure quality learning. In such a context, student unions, and teacher unions could have been a useful source of collaboration. However, organizations such as the Progressive Students Collective, and the Professors and Lecturers Association for different provinces can provide important points of correspondence. The closure of educational institutions can be an opportunity for universities to evaluate the needs of their students, using empirical data from admission records, and consulting student and teacher organizations to explore the kind of obstacles that exist on the ground amongst their diverse student body and teachers, and the ways in which these obstacles can be overcome. All of this requires communication and collaboration with teachers and students.

Furthermore, examples of students mobilizing and driving relief efforts in their communities have been widespread; this could provide an important point of introspection for educational institutions, where such acts of solidarity can become an important part of the learning curriculum that goes beyond a textbook and a classroom. Innovation during times of crisis in education is not just about technology in the way it is being approached right now, but also introspection related to knowledge, the relevance of the learning experience for the everyday realities of students and teachers. As we think of alternatives, we need to re-evaluate what we consider learning, especially during a pandemic where that textbook knowledge seems to be increasingly irrelevant.

There is the added importance of recognizing gendered educational inequalities that exist within the household. The triple burden on women will be exacerbated for female teachers and students, where their access to teaching and learning will further be compromised as they take on the added responsibility of household and care work, while expecting to teach and attend classes at home. Further problematic is the assumption that home life will be conducive to learning, overlooking the kind of physical, emotional, psychological and sexual abuse that may exist inside homes, where for many students and teachers campuses were safer options than their homes.

Rushing into an online mode of teaching will most certainly exacerbate educational inequalities as they exist in Pakistan today. While it is important to recognize the uncertainty related to COVID-19 and the need for a Plan B in education if educational institutions remain closed, that Plan B can only be successful if the existing reality of students and teachers is taken into account. There is a need to recognize the physical, emotional and psychological toll of the existing pandemic on teachers and students. Disruption to “learning” during a pandemic is only natural, but to force some form of artificial continuity in the name of “learning” is nothing more than a façade if it does not take into account the students and teachers that are central to the education process. If the rush towards online teaching is causing more stress and frustration for teachers and students during a pandemic, educational institutions, both public and private, must take the time given to them by the government that closed down universities till May 31 to better plan in collaboration with their teachers and students, instead of becoming a source of undue stress in the midst of a pandemic.

–

Tania Saeed is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at LUMS, a member of the Progressive Academics Collective (PAC), Lahore, and the co-author of Youth and the National Narrative. Education, Terrorism and the Security State in Pakistan (Bloomsbury, 2020). You may find her on Twitter @taniasaeed.

 

 

By Leanne Cameron

Doctoral studies are, by definition, a solitary activity: the research is your own. Even for doctoral student researchers in education who look at classrooms, school systems, and teacher groups, the often chaotic whirl of data collection is followed by a period of solitary analysis and write-up. In the past month, though, that isolation has become nationally mandated in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19, and doctoral researchers must abandon even collective workspaces to self-isolate within their homes. A Nature study (Woolston, 2019) of 6,300 PGTs across the world found that a third have sought help for anxiety or depression, and the two most-cited worries are uncertainties about job prospects and work-life balance. COVID-19 adds another layer of uncertainty, and for now, work and (an isolated) life co-exist under the same roof.

Fourteen doctoral researchers from across the School of Education programmes in Bristol and Hong Kong met for a Zoom discussion organised by CIRE this past Friday. The conversation focused on the intersection of challenges – the virus, recent faculty strikes, and ongoing political tensions – that have shaped their academic work during this school year. We compared virus lockdown procedures: the two Hong Kong researchers present reported that more strict guidelines had just been issued, but until that point, restaurants and cafes had limited parties to four at a table and police checkpoints were in effect. Bristol researchers conveyed our situation in which everything except supermarkets and pharmacies were shut down, with one outdoor exercise period allowed per day. Or, as Zibah so poetically put it, “exercise or extra fries!”

There was a point of immediate agreement: the lockdown is not some form of vacation or writing retreat. The “uncertainty” already associated with the doctoral journey is further compounded by near-daily changes to national guidelines and virus infection rates; international doctoral researchers specially spoke of keeping an eye on the UK situation along with the unfolding situation in their home nations. Shimmi reported her worries about her home country, Maldives, which has managed to contain the virus but is beginning to suffer from the worldwide shutdown: the nation receives almost all food products from outside of the islands. India and other key trade partners have shut down shipping and transit in their own efforts to fight the spread. Further, with Ramadan coming in the next month, she wonders if the desire to participate in religious rites and gatherings will counteract isolation protocols. Together, the mental strain of uncertainty and worry for family members serve to impede the sort of “deep think” required for doctoral-level work.

Like workers across the world, researchers who are also parents must juggle their work with their childcare duties. Sian made it halfway through a self-introduction when her sweet, precocious toddler climbed into her lap and announced that she 1) has chickenpox, 2) just got a new kitchen, and 3) was attending (until this week) a new preschool: “Half a sentence and I get interrupted.” The other women with children in the group agreed; for Jill, being at home with her children and trying to keep them focused on their schoolwork means that “it’s difficult to even think about my thesis at the moment.” Cecile agreed that, even with the shift to online-based classes and meetings, “I can’t really do anything with kids in the house.” This was a common theme especially for parent-researchers who are the sole adult in flat.

A Bristol-based researcher, Martin, got home from fieldwork just in time. He had been working in Ethiopia, collecting data for his work on refugees and policy when the WHO issued the pandemic declaration and nations began to lockdown. A day after he booked flights to return home early, he got a flurry of emails from his funder telling him to return to the UK. “It was lucky because the night that I flew out, [Ethiopian Airlines] cancelled flights to thirty countries.” He was able to set up interviews with stakeholders and policymakers who could communicate online; for refugee participants, this was less of a possibility and thus the data collected will probably alter his outcomes. Other researchers worried about extensions for funding and thesis submission, and it is our hope that the university puts student well-being first and allows more time and funding for researchers trying to work through this difficult period.

With all of this uncertainty, there were bright spots. A discussion like this managed to connect Bristol and Hong Kong researchers, allowing for interaction that often feels impossible or complicated due to packed workday schedules and time differences. We agreed to continue weekly meetings during the crisis, to both discuss our frustrations and have conversation about anything besides COVID-19 and the thesis. But most importantly, the fourteen of us were able to remind each other to be gracious to ourselves and those around us and allow ourselves time to care for day-to-day needs rather than produce an opus of a thesis – for now.

 

Woolston, C. (2019). PhDs: The torturous truth. Nature, 575, 403-406. doi: 10.1038/d41586-019-03459-7