UNESCO’s Global Education Coalition launches toolkit for education recovery in collaboration with McKinsey & Company
Paris: UNESCO in partnership with McKinsey & Company on Friday launched a toolkit to guide policymakers in their education responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, entitled: COVID-19 response – remote learning strategy: Remote learning strategy as a key element in ensuring continued learning.
Launched online, the toolkit addresses scenarios that span a range of situations: from ensuring that all children return to school to setting up hybrid learning systems and planning for the potential resurgence of the pandemic.
The toolkit, which will be updated regularly over coming months, examines promising practices and examples and features checklists of concrete measures and actions covering five topics: (i) remote learning strategy; (ii) re-enrollment; (iii) re-mediation; (iv) hybrid learning; (v) organizing for the response.
Each topic follows an intuitive sequence: It exposes the problem at hand and provides a response framework, including a tactical checklist of actions and case studies for reference. Over the coming months, the toolkit will be refined through targeted country deep dives, a series of workshops with different countries, and analyses of case studies.
The toolkit is the result of UNESCO’s partnership with McKinsey & Company under the Global Education Coalition, launched by the Organization to support countries in developing inclusive distance learning solutions.
UNESCO’s most recent figures show that schools remain closed in 117 countries, affecting more than 1 billion learners. Many countries have yet to announce reopening dates.
“In the face of the unprecedented disruption in education, we need more practical knowledge to build back stronger and more resilient education systems,” said UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Education Stefania Giannini. “This is why UNESCO and McKinsey & Company have come together to develop a structured framework that can serve policy-makers in drawing on lessons learned from this unprecedented period of educational disruption and planning for the future.”
“McKinsey is proud to collaborate on the development of the toolkit,” said Li-Kai Chen, McKinsey Senior Partner and Global Leader of the Education Practice. “Our aim is to help education system leaders respond to the overwhelming crisis in education caused by the pandemic and provide a practical resource to help guide them as they try to minimize learning loss and support vulnerable learners, while ensuring that students are safe.