How Learning Continued during the COVID‑19 Pandemic

During the first wave of school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic, the OECD, the World Bank, the Global Education Innovation Initiative at Harvard University and HundrED joined forces to document a variety of examples of what education stakeholders did to allow academic learning to continue. This report brings together a collection of 45 case studies that were initially published on the OECD and World Bank websites between May 2020 and March 2021 (Part II).

The “education continuity stories” describe specific solutions implemented by government, non-governmental organisation or companies to support teachers and learners. Many of these solutions had a strong technology dimension. These stories describe the proposed solution in terms of objectives and implementation, but also reflect on the challenges and success factors, the replicability of the initiative in other contexts, and the evidence of success that was gathered (at the time of initial publication). While most initiatives focus on primary and secondary education, they cover all levels of education, and illustrate innovations that have been undertaken around the world, in countries with different contexts, culture and levels of income.

The case studies illustrate that those initiatives:

• Relied on multi-modal solutions that combined the use of multiple media (online platforms, TV, radio, paper worksheets, text messaging, social network channels, etc.);
• Usually attempted to address inequalities in the access to connectivity and equipment (and often on other aspects such as nutrition), when they were not primarily about addressing inequity;
• Targeted learners, teachers and parents and mobilised different actors in the education ecosystem;
• Built on prior knowledge and resources that were expanded or repurposed during the crisis;
• Mobilised networks and partnerships to quickly design and implement their solution;
• Considered awareness of the solution, reach of the targeted population and sustained learning engagement as significant challenges;
• Improved their solution thanks to a qualitative monitoring and feedback strategy.