How COVID-19 has an impact on formal education: A collective international evaluation of Open Education in distance learning

While causing unprecedented disruption worldwide, COVID-19 has also stimulated the mainstreaming of digital technologies in the delivery of formal education. For most key stakeholders – organisations, educators, and students – this has been a new and challenging experience and has been described in policy terms as ‘emergency remote education’. For many students, however, it has either exacerbated or marginalised their opportunity to access formal education. In probing this impact at a deeper level, an international collaboration involving the authors during 2020-2021 focused on reviewing contemporary practices and potentials of open education as a strategic and sustainable response. This paper highlights practices, case studies, and emerging issues from 13 diverse countries, to be globally representative, which include: Australia, Brazil, France, India, Mexico, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Spain, Sweden, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. This collection of countries was selected based on researcher contexts and contributions. To date, findings indicate open education has demonstrable benefits for distance learning. More broadly, open educational practices are positioned to shape a ‘new normal’ that embraces ‘global citizenship’ while also being equitable and inclusive. Our aspirations are that such practices will lead to better formal education promoting and ensuring human rights, democracy, lifelong learning, safety, social justice, diversity, cultural sensitivity and inclusivity through strategic and long-term support by all stakeholders in both modes of educational delivery and access: face-to-face and distance learning.


HOW COVID-19 HAS AN IMPACT ON FORMAL EDUCATION: A COLLECTIVE INTERNATIONAL EVALUATION OF OPEN EDUCATION IN DISTANCE LEARNING
European Institute for Learning, Innovation and Cooperation (eLC) (GERMANY) 2 Ambedkar University Delhi (INDIA) 3 Université Paris Nanterre (FRANCE) 4 Universidad Internacional de La Rioja (SPAIN) 5 Anadolu University (TURKEY) 6 Iowa State University (UNITED STATES) 7 Joint Research Center European Commission (SPAIN) 8 Charles Darwin University (AUSTRALIA) 9 Manchester Metropolitan University (UNITED KINGDOM) 10 National Open University of Nigeria (NIGERIA) 11 Swedish Association for Distance Education (SWEDEN) 12 Tecnológico de Monterrey (MEXICO) 13 Universitat de Barcelona (SPAIN) 14 Korean National Open University (KOREA, REPUBLIC OF) 15 Taipei Medical University (TAIWAN) 16 Independent Consultant (UNITED KINGDOM) 17 The Open University (UNITED KINGDOM)

INTRODUCTION
The education system globally has been severely disrupted and experienced varied changes in governance, management, operations for teaching, learning and assessment (United Nations, 2020;

METHODOLOGY
A qualitative comparative case study approach (Stake, 1995)

In what ways has open education been proposed and addressed using distance and online learning during the COVID 19 pandemic and lockdowns?
The case study contributors are all experts in open and distance learning and experienced researchers and educationists, thus facilitating the collection of real context data and learning about open educational practices (Yin, 2011). This collective approach further allowed for triangulation of findings (Denzin, 1978) to focus the research questions and thereby enhanced the reliability and validity of our work (Oppermann, 2000).

RESULTS
The findings on the practices and case studies from the 13 countries related to how formal education systems were affected by the COVID-19 outbreak are presented hereunder. Figure 1 shows the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on formal education in various countries we examined on a scale of none to very high impacted.

Marginalised or excluded student groups
It was found that disadvantaged and marginalised social groups from lower socio-economic backgrounds have been the most severely affected due to COVID-19 pandemic. In several countries, there were early responses to try and minimise this impact and to provide support such as Australia, France and Sweden. In contrast, other countries reported a prominent digital divide such as Turkey.

Impact on infrastructure
An early finding of our investigation was the lack of resources, infrastructure, equipment, special needs, etc. We found that most of the countries investigated implemented open educational practices for continuity of education. This was mainly delivered as distance education, although the policy guidelines for these were often unrealistic or too restrictive.

Effective communication
Effective communication between teachers and students is a crucial foundation of education (Tiffin & Rajasingham, 1995). During emergencies, this foundation requires additional support for social and emotional wellbeing (Chatzidamianos & Nerantzi, 2020). For those with access to adequate infrastructure, such communication was maintained globally by using social media, virtual learning environments (VLE) and online platforms such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or Google Meet suddenly with no time or preparations for training.

Digitally-supported open learning
Online platforms generally provided increased support for openness, with many companies offering services and resources for free that normally attracted a premium. South Korea adopted open education which soon is going to be legislated (

Open Educational Resources (OER)
The UNESCO Recommendation on OER (2019)

DISCUSSIONS AND LIMITATIONS
In analysing the various responses to the pandemic by education systems we identified three levels as macro, meso, and micro and analysed the related impact (Stracke, 2013, 2019).

Macro level: Missing infrastructure as a challenge to formal education
Missing infrastructure is a macro level factor as the formal education sector was generally not ready to switch to open education by adopting distance education practices. Turkey, France, Mexico and the UK reported providing free access to online resources using television and the Internet. In India, satellite-based SWAYAM PRABHA (bundle of 34 DTH channels) was reported. OER usage was reported through projects like BELUGA in Africa, DIKSHA platform of the Ministry of Education in India. France, Nigeria, South Korea, and Sweden reported strategies for reaching out to disadvantaged geographical areas or vulnerable populations.

Meso level: Access to Open Educational Resources
In the Netherlands, Sweden and Taiwan

Micro level: Capacity building and competence development
Formal education systems were clearly derailed by the sudden closures of schools and universities, and despite the widespread loss of jobs have also shown resilience in various attempts at the continuity of delivery. Teachers and students were required to shift to online mode (emergency remote teaching) and this required developing certain technological, pedagogical and digital competences. Designing online instructions, using online teaching-learning tools and providing online support to students were new tasks for most teachers.

Limitations
We acknowledge several limitations of this study. The contributors were selected based on their availability, there has been subjectivity in reporting as the experiences are based on individual knowledge, and the limited dataset for making inferences and comparing diverse cultures and contexts. The reported case studies also have not addressed an existing problem of 'out of school' children made many times worse by the pandemic.

CONCLUSIONS
The disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has shown a range of responses by education systems worldwide (Stracke et al., 2020(Stracke et al., , 2021. Most notably has been the unpreparedness of formal education systems for such disruption challenging its quality (Stracke, 2017). We observed novel ideas, pedagogical practices, strategies, tools and techniques adopted by individual teachers and students and also by institutions. Low usage or lack of open education and OER revealed economic inequities (access to infrastructure and resources), cultural injustice (the lack of cultural sensitivity) and political injustice where teachers in various constrained environments lack voice and empowerment (Hodgkinson-Williams & Trotter, 2018). The digital divide has also become more prominent in terms of access to devices and Internet connections. A positive development we noted, however, is increased collaboration between teachers and at the institutional level. We noted a greater need for the inclusiveness of digital education. This period further highlighted the need for open and direct communication and pro-active leadership that recognises the need for trauma-informed pedagogy of care, changed roles of parents as teachers, and increased domestic violence and student stress came. And while digital connectivity has been a 'lifeline' for many, too much exposure to webinars has also met with resistance and 'screen fatigue' (UNESCO et al., 2020(UNESCO et al., , 2021. This period has heightened calls for policies for open education and openness. Assessment is crucial to robust educational process but has been threatened in online settings by increased cheating (and online services feeding this demand) and other non-ethical practices. Lastly, this study highlights the emergent need for inclusiveness and social justice in education.