BUILDING BACK BETTER: EDUCATION SYSTEMS FOR RESILIENCE, EQUITY AND QUALITY IN THE AGE OF COVID-19 July 21, 2020 The COVID-19 pandemic presents a deep and and Distance Education Project – designed potentially long-term human development specifically in this period - aligned to most recent crisis with far reaching consequences. Even evidence of how best to respond to emergencies before COVID-19 caused unprecedented inter- by closing gaps between (i) urgent social meas- ruptions in education delivery around the world, ures to protect the most vulnerable against 258 million children of primary and secondary shocks, and (ii) resilient recovery to restore live- school age were out of school globally (UNESCO) lihoods, equity and sustainable growth. Based and over half of all 10-year-old children in low- on the Turkey project design, components of an and middle-income countries could not read immediate emergency response, coupled with and understand a simple age-appropriate story longer term goals to promote resilience, equity (World Bank). With the spread of COVID-19, most and quality can be summarized as: countries mandate school closures impacting at least 1.5 billion children and youth that may cause loss of learning in the short term that can INVESTING IN EMERGENCY CONNECTIVITY lead to loss in human capital and diminished AND IT INFRASTRUCTURE FOR EDUCATION economic opportunities over the long term. IN EMERGENCIES Maintaining education services, public and This component focuses on interventions to: (i) private, has almost overnight transformed the address the urgent response to the ongoing skills that matter around the world in the imme- emergency by expanding the existing public diate aftermath of the pandemic. Hence educa- online education platform through immediate tion, skills development and lifelong learning enhancements to its digital infrastructure, and (ii) have emerged as key drivers of national accelerate the transition to full-scale distance response initiatives. learning solutions required for post-pandemic recovery through the development of a new As a result, education is going through a massive system that combines universal access with transformation globally. Ministries of educa- equity and sustainable IT infrastructure with tion are simultaneously tackling several chal- resilience to future shocks. lenges – protecting learning through distance education, building resiliency by improving and SUPPORTING DIGITAL CONTENT AND expanding online education, mitigating and PEDAGOGY FOR SAFETY AND QUALITY recovering learning loss by targeting vulnerable groups, and initiating medium term reforms to This component focuses on supporting the curricula, pedagogy and assessments to deliver development of distance education content the skills demanded by the labor market. To during the period of school closures and for a enhance the capacity of education systems to gradual return to classroom-based teaching in provide distance learning during and following addition to strengthening blended teaching the COVID-19 pandemic in an equitable and and learning (mix of classroom-based and effective manner, governments not only need on-line learning). This potentially includes feasi- to support the immediate education response bility and design studies for innovation hubs to the outbreak, but also systematically lay the that promote development of digital materials groundwork for critical investments to preserve for teachers and students. It can also help coor- human capital over the longer term and to face dinate the research and development process future shocks. for education technology innovations, as well as the strategy to involve teachers and schools to Elements of reforms that put countries ahead of identify, test and evaluate innovations. Teachers’ the curve include efforts to promote resilience, involvement can be organized as a unit through a equity and quality. Countries are coping with professional learning lab that will support peda- the crisis through remote learning at scale in the gogical and organizational improvements at the immediate term as well as efforts to facilitate school level, including training of trainers and effective blended learning after the pandemic is improvements to teachers’ continuous profes- over. A recent example is Turkey’s Safe Schooling sional development. 1(2) Building Back Better: Education Systems for Resilience, Equity and Quality in the Age of COVID-19 July 21, 2020 BUILDING BETTER INSTITUTIONAL CAPACITY Any potential intervention should also aim to FOR EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY RESILIENCE increase the concurrent use of the online distance education platforms and provide certified This component focuses on strengthening the on-line training to more teachers. In the case of capacity for the coordination, management, Turkey, concurrent (weekly) use would rise from monitoring and evaluation of remote or blended 300,000 during baseline to 1,000,000 by the learning projects and for the continued delivery end of school year 2021-22, to finally 5,000,000 of safe and equitable digital education services by the end of the project and certify 900,000 nationwide. teachers from a baseline of 80,000. CROSS CUTTING CONSIDERATIONS COSTS AND IMPLEMENTATION PLAN Any remote or blended learning project should To share a concrete example for breakdown of prioritize equity interventions for students most costs, for the above impact targets, the overall vulnerable to learning loss due to school closures. cost of the project in Turkey is $160 million, The Turkey project addresses equity chal- divided across three components (60 percent lenges through supporting TV-based delivery, of the overall budget is dedicated to Investing providing content for visually and hearing-im- in Emergency Connectivity and IT Infrastructure paired students, supporting Ministry of National for Education in Emergencies, 34 percent to Education’s catch-up learning programs, and Supporting Digital Content and Pedagogy for financing awareness and outreach programs Safety and Quality, and 6 percent to Building for school re-engagement in vulnerable Better Institutional Capacity for Education communities. Technology Resilience). In addition, teachers play a central role in real- The Turkey Safe Schooling and Distance izing the goals of remote/blended learning. The Education Project has been designed in Turkey project provides dedicated online spaces coordination with the Ministry of Education and other learning environments for teachers (MoNE) Directorate General for Innovation and and provides teachers spaces to exchange Educational Technologies (DGIET) and World knowledge and includes investments on teacher Bank (Education and Digital Development). training and professional development, including More details of Safe Schooling and Distance in digital skills, blended classroom management, Education Project can be found here and here. curriculum delivery, artificial intelligence and other EdTech skills. It targets all teachers but provides affirmative actions for female teachers and monitors impact by gender. GOALS FOR IMPACT AND REACH AUTHORS: Remote or blended learning interventions Prepared by Binh Thanh Vu and Isil Oral Savonitto, can be scaled by increasing usage of existing Education Global Practice, World Bank Group. remote learning platforms to a higher portion of users depending on scale, numbers, time, and Email address: tvu@worldbank.org. resources. In the case of Turkey, the goal is to increase the usage of the online distance educa- The authors thank Harry Patrinos for his guidance and Joel tion from 26 percent (4 million plus students) Reyes, Ayesha Vawda, Tigran Shmis for their valuable insights, during baseline (March 2020), to 45 percent (or comments and suggestions. The findings, interpretations, 7.5 million students) by midline (2021-22), and and conclusions are entirely those of the authors. They do not finally to 70 percent (or 11 million plus students) necessarily represent the views of the World Bank Group, its by the end of the project, at least 50 percent of Executive Directors, or the governments they represent. whom are girls. 2(2)