The Standing Working Group (SWG) "Observatory for the History of Education" was formed in the city of Porto (Portugal) during the International Standing Conference for the History of Education (ISCHE) in July 2019. Its essential purpose is to understand and reflect on the current theories and issues that are emerging from this field of knowledge during challenging times of the transition from the twentieth to the twenty-first century. In addition, more than a dose of uncertainty has been caught from the COVID-19 pandemic and affected our thinking about the meaning of history and life cycles. For, as we are duty-bound to admit, "time is the lord of history". This text seeks to set out the guiding principles of this observatory and open up new avenues of reflection in the context of the current pandemic.