Responding to Covid-19 and Looking Beyond (News and Research 202)
Turkey Invests in Safer Schooling and Distance Education with World Bank Support | Congrats Joel, Binh, Natalija | The World Bank approved a Euro 143.8 million ($160 million equivalent) Safe Schooling And Distance Education Project loan to the Republic of Turkey to enhance the capacity of the education system to provide e-learning equitably to school-age children during and following the COVID-19 pandemic and future shocks… “The project supports the COVID-19 emergency response and return-to school activities, while setting the IT, educational and institutional foundations to support longer-term blended (classroom-on-line) education needs and roll out a stronger educational digital system to support education delivery in the face of any future shocks,” said Joel Reyes, the Task Leader of the project. “Lastly, strengthening Turkey’s digital education system can have important environmental and disaster-risk management co-benefits, such as making the platform and its data resistant to extreme climate, power outings, and even reduction in carbon emissions by limiting paper use and travel”…
Investing in public education worldwide is now more important than ever | Together with The World Bank, UCL Honorary Lecturer Vikas Pota and Argentinian Senator Esteban Bullrich, the Center for Universal Education at Brookings has been convening a series of private roundtables that bring together ministers of education around the globe, heads of education foundations and multilateral institutions to discuss strategic options to ensure that in these times of crisis, children and youth continue to have access to quality education. We have heard from former heads of state, who have generously contributed their time and insights from previous experience having had to make tough decisions to allocate resources in times of financial crises…
The Impact of COVID-19 on Student Experiences and Expectations: Evidence from a Survey | In order to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on higher education, we surveyed approximately 1,500 students at one of the largest public institutions in the United States using an instrument designed to recover the causal impact of the pandemic on students’ current and expected outcomes. Results show large negative effects across many dimensions. Due to COVID-19: 13% of students have delayed graduation, 40% lost a job, internship, or a job offer, and 29% expect to earn less at age 35. Moreover, these effects have been highly heterogeneous. One quarter of students increased their study time by more than 4 hours per week due to COVID-19, while another quarter decreased their study time by more than 5 hours per week. This heterogeneity often followed existing socioeconomic divides; lower-income students are 55% more likely to have delayed graduation due to COVID-19 than their higher-income peers. Finally, we show that the economic and health related shocks induced by COVID-19 vary systematically by socioeconomic factors and constitute key mediators in explaining the large (and heterogeneous) effects of the pandemic.
The Big Bad Wolf moves south: How COVID-19 affects higher education financing in developing countries | Jamil Salmi, Nina Arnhold, Roberta Bassett | In a recent blog, we retold the tale of the three little pigs as the story of tertiary education financing in Western Europe, with COVID-19 as the big bad wolf shaking the foundations of various funding models. We observed how privately and publicly funded systems, especially those that rely heavily on fees from international students, have come under pressure due to the coronavirus. Is the crisis playing out in a similar way in developing countries? What are the risks for tertiary education funding in low- and middle-income countries?…
Working at Home in Greece: Unexplored Potential at Times of Social Distancing?
Robots and Jobs: Evidence from US … One more robot per thousand workers reduces the employment-to-population ratio by 0.2 percentage points and wages by 0.42%…
Belarus, IBRD sign €100m loan agreement to upgrade higher education | Belarus and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) have signed a €100-million loan agreement to implement the project to upgrade Belarus’ higher education…
More coverage:
https://interfax.by/news/biznes/finansy/1278042/
https://tass.ru/ekonomika/8798137
https://blizko.by/notes/belarusi-dadut-zaym-v-100-mln-evro-na-modernizatsiyu-vysshego-obrazovaniya
https://reform.by/142374-belarus-privlekla-100-mln-dollarov-na-modernizaciju-vysshego-obrazovanija
https://www.belarus24.by/news/society/100-mln-evro-na-modernizatsiyu-vysshego-obrazovaniya/
Education, economics and public policy 