Rethinking Education in the Raw Materials Sector through Tailor-Made Teaching Methodologies

This article presents a methodology applied to the design of a tailor-made program for teaching staff that addresses the needs of high-level educational institutions in the Eastern and South-Eastern European (ESEE) region. The tailor-made program was implemented as a one-week online course for 22 “Trainees” from six ESEE universities earlier in 2021. “Trainees” from six participating universities are currently developing acceleration programs, planned to occur continuously until 2024, increasing the percentage of the trained academic staff to >50% at each of the six universities. During that period, 240 students will benefit from 140 improved RawMaterials-related courses, improving their learning and understanding.

COVID-19, the global education project and technology: Disrupting priorities towards rethinking education

This paper argues that the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic created a space to reconceptualise education and rethink priorities. Although no one will deny the devastating impact of the pandemic, humans have been able to continue with various projects, including the global education project, largely made possible through unprecedented technology advancement, as well as the uptake of technologies that advanced pre-COVID-19. In many ways, the clear distinction between human and technological (being non-human) practices has blurred to a point where the mere nature of human projects such as the global education project has become post-human. While different schools of thought on the nature of “post-human” exist, we use it to refer to what we are becoming together, a comprehension and awareness of the connectedness between humans and their natural and technological environment and the ethical concerns that come with it. COVID-19 provides an opportunity to reconsider the connectedness, complexities and dynamics of the world, and what we (humans, nature, Earth, technology) are becoming. Based on a literature survey and critical refection on the state of the global education expansion project at the time of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, we suggest the following changes to the ways quantity, quality and equality in education are conceptualised. The employment of technology should be added in the conceptualisation of input quality. Flexibility, support and connectedness should be built into the process quality equation. Most importantly, ecology should also be added as a product of education, and not merely a contextual influence in education.

Covid-19 and the entrenchment of a virtual Elite private school: Rethinking education policies in Zimbabwe

By using a critical emancipatory research framework, this theoretical paper discusses the COVID-19-induced commercialisation of the education system in Zimbabwe. It argues that COVID-19 exposed and widened the digital gap between privileged and underprivileged learners, regardless of the learners’ geographical location. The digitalisation of the education space –in adherence to World Health Organization’s COVID-19 guidelines – has resulted in the creation of virtual elite schools. Learners from privileged families found sanctuary in digital learning, whilst underprivileged learners continue to be exposed to the reality of commercialised education. This trend has revealed educational inequalities between privileged and underprivileged learners. The paper answers two major questions: 1. What are the inequalities that were reintroduced by the COVID-19 pandemic in the Zimbabwean education system? and 2. How effective is stakeholders’ response to COVID-19-induced inequalities? The paper argues that COVID-19 has dashed the hopes of free education for all, by creating a digital gap that perpetuates and entrenches inequalities in relation to learners. In light of these findings, the study suggests that education stakeholders invest in digital infrastructure, with special attention being paid to learners’ economic status, as opposed to their geographical location.

Rights in education: outlines for a decolonial, childist reimagination of the future – commentary to Ansell and colleagues

In this piece, we reflect upon a recent article published in Fennia by Ansell and colleagues. We identify and discuss aspects of learning that educational research, policies and institutions can consider, addressing the needs and subjectivities of learners and activating a politics around rights in education. Rights in education foreground the intrinsic value of learning,inviting us to realign the purpose of education with the overall purpose of life on this planet. It pursues a ‘bottom-up’ strategy for rethinking education as community formation to incorporate complex sources of knowledge and modes of knowing and becoming for children. In order to think about rights in education, we uphold an analytical distinction between schooling and education. The distinction enables us to raise some questions, reflect on them and suggest preliminary ideas for decolonial, childist strategies to envisage education, highlighting how education and the ‘future’ areintimately woven and exploring what they mean for each other and for childhood. We do so particularly by critiquing ‘western schooling’ as a mode of learning which is a conspirator of capitalism deeply rooted in philosophical racism and contributing to a global epistemological loss. Finally, we outline four strategies of moving forward with a decolonial,childist lens of reimagining education as community formation and welcome further discussions on rights in education.