To make sense of the changes provoked by the COVID-19 pandemic and its immediate aftermath, this paper critically examines digital education policy responses in the context of the 'new realities' faced by schooling. Based on seven case studies contributed by authors from Australia, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Canada, Sri Lanka, two key questions…

Higher education institutions (HEIs) are more critical than ever to help societies respond to the complex challenges of our times. Recognising that these challenges require HEIs to adopt holistic innovations in teaching, research and collaboration activities, the European Commission (EC) and the OECD have developed the HEInnovate guiding…

An appreciative inquiry approach oriented eight semi-structured interviews conducted with teachers from Australia, New Zealand, Austria, Italy, Spain, Canada, Bangladesh and India to identify their intrinsic and extrinsic strengths and understand how they were able to translate them into practice during the first COVID-19 lockdown in 2020.…

The role universities play in advancing COVID-specific knowledge and long-term management of this global crisis is largely unknown. In this comparative perspective study, we document the ways in which members from universities in the US, New Zealand, Italy, South Korea, and China engage in activities to respond to the pandemic. We frame this study…

The COVID-19 pandemic and the move to remote education exposed old and new inequities, yet it also represented an opportunity to rethink inclusive education. This paper presents findings from a one-year project "DIGITAL in a time of Coronavirus" and draws upon policy analysis and interviews with teachers, principals, and community…

Objective: International agencies report the importance of health promotion in planning educational strategies and school management in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aimed to identify the benefits of using a Health Promoting School (HPS) approach to guide educational and school policy during the COVID-19 epidemic in Italy, the main…

This report describes how entrepreneurship competence is embedded in vocational education and training (VET) in Italy. It complements existing knowledge with examples of methods, tools and approaches that can help policy-makers, VET providers and other stakeholders build better entrepreneurial learning ecosystems. The report is based on the pilot…

Digital technologies are increasingly present in young children's lives. How can early education systems get the best out of digitalisation while minimising its risks? This is especially urgent as the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated our reliance on digital tools -- tools that enabled young children to continue learning when early education…

The suspension of face-to-face teaching activities, due to the pandemic emergency, led universities to rearrange their teaching strategies using online learning environments and video-conference tools as a temporarily replacement of classrooms, without an accurate attention to training strategies. In this scenario, there is a need to reconsider…

The aim of this report is threefold. Its first section provides an overall sketch of the situation across Europe and the underlying mechanisms for the differences in European countries. The second section focuses on the heterogeneities within each country. It examines the disparities among students in order to understand which of those correlate…

With the COVID-19 outbreak and the resulting lockdown, Italian schools have continued to provide education using distance learning systems. In this emergency, the primary aim of the Ministry of Education was to guarantee each student's right to education. The expression "School Never Stops" ("La Scuola non si ferma") is a clear…

We compare national education policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in England, Germany and Italy to explore negotiations about the public good and identify the role that research has played in framing, legitimating and rendering trustworthy the settlements reached. National data, comprising news media reports and publically available…

Strategic government interventions in public education have shifted and blurred the boundaries between state, market and civil society modes of governance. Within this matrix of interdependent relations, schools operate under increasingly hybrid accountability arrangements in which public accountability can both complement and compete with market…

The unprecedented shift to remote schooling introduced in many countries in the spring of 2020 as one of the preventive measures to stop the spread of COVID-19 gave us the opportunity not only to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of remote schooling, but also to reflect on how education is being provided in general. We interviewed in total…

This report explores the different ways in which European Union (EU) Member States (MS) have attempted to ensure high-quality ECEC (Early Childhood Education and Care) for children and families in the era of COVID-19. The rationale for the report builds on the Conclusions of the European Council concerning the fight against COVID-19 in education…