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    • Jul 30, 2022
    • 7 min read

Ip #5 Global Health

How does global health impact education and what educational lessons have been learned from the COVID-19 pandemic?


Task: Research, identify, describe and explain, where you can, relationships among education, technology, and global health. Use specific examples. How does global health constitute a ‘new foundation’ on which educational technology has been, is being, and will be built? (Make sure to review the resources referenced in this (Global Health) module to keep you on the right track). Then read, research and report on significant lessons education has learned---or has yet to learn---from the most recent global health event—the COVID 19 Pandemic.


Assigned Materials




“Global health can be thought of as a notion (the current state of global health), an objective (a world of healthy people, a condition of global health), or a mix of scholarship, research, and practice (with many questions, issues, skills, and competencies).” (Koplan et al., 2009)

Could we use global health as a roadmap to create a ‘new foundation’ on which educational technology has been, is being, and will be built? Were we to make a definition of “Global Education” perhaps it would be a notion (the current state of global education), an objective (a world of lifelong learners who develop the skills, competencies and knowledge not only to be part of the workforce but also to be able to lead happy and productive lives in a sustainable environment. (FOGGS & P4TT, 2020)), or a mix of scholarship, research and practice (with many questions, issues, skills, and competencies).


Obviously, these definitions are shockingly similar. Both recognize a need for a global approach to human rights; health and education. UNDRIP states that “everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including [...] medical care” and “Everyone has the right to education, it shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups.” (United Nations, 1948) It also says that “everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits” , which could be interpreted as a right to accessible technology as the communities (global, national and local) interact more and more through digital tools.


Koplan et al. ( 2009) stated that “The quest for equity is a fundamental philosophical value for public health.” But this can easily be extended to cover education and technology as well, especially as the world has turned to technology to facilitate education during Covid. Throughout the pandemic it became clear that these three topics were more intertwined than ever as the world came to a screeching halt during lockdowns. Kopland said that “the global in global health refers to the scope of problems, not their location.” (2009) and we saw this apply to education and access to technology as the cracks in the system were laid bare during the global scramble to protect teachers, students and families from Covid.

As the pandemic becomes less of an emergency and more of an ongoing slog, researchers in all three disciplines are questioning whether we should (or can) ‘go back to normal’. “The breaching effects of the pandemic are already generating new and innovative ways to collectively discuss and re-think everyday beliefs about how we learn and what we value.” (Boys, 2022) Global health has been shaken to its very core as countries fought misinformation, conspiracy theories and pandemic fatigue from citizens and healthcare workers. Education had been rocked by wave after wave of changing health orders as students, educators and families struggled to adapt to many of the same problems healthcare was facing, all while juggling new technologies.


Many governing bodies struggled with reporting during the pandemic. “Without data on how the virus impacted student learning, making informed decisions about whether and when to return to in-person instruction remains difficult” (Lewis, 2020). Similarly, many regional health authorities world-wide struggled with how and what to report. Even though in this age of digital tracking and constant data collection, we should have had that kind of information at our fingertips. The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response (IPPPR) said in it’s report on the Covid 19 response that "The combination of poor strategic choices, unwillingness to tackle inequalities, and an uncoordinated system created a toxic cocktail which allowed the pandemic to turn into a catastrophic human crisis”(Kupferschmidt, 2021), but the same could easily be said about the global education system, which was wholly unprepared for such an event, even with access to technologies that should have made a difference. Instead, students who were already struggling fared worst of all (Canadian Commission for Unesco, 2020). Uses of digital technologies—ranging from smartphones and social media, to AI and other emerging technologies—are now a key facet of contemporary society. These technologies should lead to wider access to education and richer learning experiences for students. “For this to happen, there is an urgent need to guide decision makers, based on sound research and evidence, on which pedagogical approaches, technologies and online content could be used, and in which instances. A lack of evidence based education technology interventions in the recent past has led to unsuccessful outcomes.” Similar to how the WHO (World Health Organization) guides global health, perhaps we need to create a World Education Organization to guide us through the implementation of new educational technologies that help to lessen the impacts of global social and economic inequities. Education IS health because, at the end of the day, without high quality standards for educating health care professionals, governments and populations, and the implementation of new technologies to facilitate it, the goals of global health cannot be achieved.



So, what has education learned from the Covid 19 pandemic so far?


Firstly, the move to online learning brought to light pre-existing poor teaching practices. It made clearly visible how many educators had not kept up with technological changes as they attempted to “make the online space work as much as possible like face-to-face forms of delivery (rather than, for example, changing the shape of that delivery).” (Boys, 2022)


Second, it exposed the limits of educators' abilities to handle mismanagement. Teachers, mired in confusion and contingency, were asked to “engage in an elaborate performance of wholeness, coherence, organization, and professionalism via performances in front of the ‘portal’ of a screen” (Boys, 2022), while at the same time, the work itself became “effortful and exhausting”(Boys, 2022). Leading to unprecedented teacher burnout. In America, over 300,000 public-school teachers left the field between 2020 and2022, a “nearly 3% drop in that workforce.”(Dill, 2022). In Alberta, more than a third of teachers would prefer to retire, move, or start a new career rather than work in the province's schools by 2026, feeling “disrespected and demoralized. 92% reported exhaustion, 88% reported high levels of stress and 51% reported feeling anxious more than half of the days of the week.” (Amato et al., 2022)


Third, it opened up dialogue about the difficulties that disabeled and neurodivergent students and teachers are faced with; “mimicking the realities pre-pandemic for disabled faculty and students who have often had to do the extra (exhausting) everyday work of ‘passing’ as non-disabled and/or of negotiating the time-consuming processes of being given individual ‘reasonable adjustments’ and accommodations” (Boys, 2022).


Fourth, it encouraged educators to re-evaluate how “assumptions about what constitutes learning and teaching competency and achievement are themselves racist and ableist and that these are embedded across the physical learning environment, everyday teaching practices and curriculum design, delivery and assessment” (Boys, 2022). Especially as school boards and districts grappled with how to provide learning to diverse student bodies, and with their ultimate failure to do so successfully for all students.


Fifth, that the majority of students, across all age groups, disliked remote learning. “Most high school respondents (surveyed June 1 to 8, 2020) said that they either “dislike” distance learning (34 percent) or “struggle at times” (19 percent) with online studies. When asked what challenges they faced, 50.9 percent cited “engagement in learning at home,” the most prevalent response, followed by “workload or schedule of assignments.””(Bennett, 2020)


Sixth, canceling or postponing key assessments (both educational and behavioural) has had a ripple effect, “the loss of this information delays the recognition of both high potential and learning difficulties and can have harmful long-term consequences.” (Burgess & Sievertsen, 2020)


Seventh, schools are much more than a place for academic learning. They are also where irreplaceable social skills are learned, and an important support for parents who need to work. During 2020 lockdown, 59 percent of Ontario parents noted “behavioural changes in their child ranging from outbursts or extreme irritability to drastic changes in mood, behaviour or personality and difficulty sleeping/altered sleeping patterns. More children were also reported to have been suffering persistent sadness and experiencing feelings of hopelessness for a couple of weeks or more.”(Bennett, 2020)





References

Amato, S., Edmonton, C. N., & Contact, F. |. (2022). “Disrespected and demoralized”: Survey shows 37% of Alberta teachers may leave in the next five years. Edmonton. https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/disrespected-and-demoralized-survey-shows-37-of-alberta-teachers-may-leave-in-the-next-five-years-1.5757753


Bennett, P. (2020). The educational experience has been substandard for students during COVID-19. Policy Options. https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/july-2020/the-educational-experience-has-been-substandard-for-students-during-covid-19/


Boys, J. (2022). Exploring Inequalities in the Social, Spatial and Material Practices of Teaching and Learning in Pandemic Times. Postdigital Science and Education, 4(1), 13–32. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-021-00267-z


Burgess, S., & Sievertsen, H. H. (2020). Schools, skills, and learning: The impact of COVID-19 on education. VoxEU.Org. https://voxeu.org/article/impact-covid-19-education


Canadian Commission for Unesco. (2020). COVID-19 Is Creating a World Crisis in Education. Canadian Commission for UNESCO. https://en.ccunesco.ca/blog/2020/4/online-educational-resources-covid19


Dill, K. (2022). School’s Out for Summer and Many Teachers Are Calling It Quits. Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/schools-out-for-summer-and-many-teachers-are-calling-it-quits-11655732689


FOGGS, & P4TT. (2020). COVIDEA (COVID Education Alliance). https://www.foggs.org/covidea/


Koplan, J. P., Bond, T. C., Merson, M. H., Reddy, K. S., Rodriguez, M. H., Sewankambo, N. K., & Wasserheit, J. N. (2009). Towards a common definition of global health. The Lancet, 373(9679), 1993–1995. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(09)60332-9


Kupferschmidt, K. (2021). ‘A toxic cocktail:’ Panel delivers harsh verdict on the world’s failure to prepare for pandemic. https://www.science.org/content/article/toxic-cocktail-panel-delivers-harsh-verdict-world-s-failure-prepare-pandemic


Lewis, M. K., Jim Soland, Beth Tarasawa, Angela Johnson, Erik Ruzek, and Karyn. (2020). How is COVID-19 affecting student learning? Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2020/12/03/how-is-covid-19-affecting-student-learning/


United Nations. (1948). Universal Declaration of Human Rights. United Nations; United Nations. https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights



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