Background: This paper investigates how the COVID-19 school closure has affected the gender gap in grade-8 students' performance and what are the drivers behind this. By analysing four different countries (i.e., the Russian Federation, Slovenia, Uzbekistan and the United Arab Emirates), the paper represents the first study addressing the issue…

When schools started closing their doors due to COVID-19, countries in Europe and Central Asia quickly provided alternative learning solutions for children to continue learning. More than 90 per cent of countries offered digital solutions to ensure that education activities could continue. However, lack of access to digital devices and a reliable…

The Responses to Educational Disruption Survey (REDS), conducted by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), studied how teaching and learning were affected by the disruptions caused by COVID-19 and aimed to paint a picture of national responses to the global pandemic. REDS was based on the premise that…

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted education provision at an unprecedented scale, with education systems around the world being impacted by extended school closures and abrupt changes to normal school operations. The Responses to Educational Disruption Survey (REDS) investigated how teaching and learning were affected by the health crisis, and how…

This volume contains a collection of selected papers submitted to the 19th Annual International Conference of the Bulgarian Comparative Education Society (BCES) held in June 2021. The 19th BCES Conference theme is "New Challenges to Education: Lessons from around the World." The book includes 40 papers written by 66 authors from 15…