COVID-19 Education Crises in Contexts of Emergency and Protracted Crises: Exploring Education Cannot Wait’s Response to the Pandemic

• In Event: In the Wake of the Pandemic: How International Organizations are Responding to Crisis and Changing Global Governance in Education

Proposal

Education systems around the world were operating in a state of emergency as a result of pandemic policy responses, including widespread school closures and shifts to online delivery modes. Established in 2016, Education Cannot Wait (ECW) is the United Nations global fund dedicated to Education in Emergencies (EiE) and protracted crises. Given its leadership, fundraising and policy advocacy roles, the purpose of the current study is to understand how ECW – as a global partnership, navigated the COVID-19 pandemic in contexts of existing emergencies and crises.
The paper presents the findings of a qualitative study of ECW’s work in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, from March 2020 to March 2023. Two primary questions guide the research: 1) How did ECW respond to the COVID-19 pandemic? 2) How and why did the COVID-19 pandemic change or otherwise influence the work of ECW? Together these questions guide an analysis of organizational change and continuity, as well as the motivations, logic, and evidence informing the work of ECW in response to the pandemic. A thematic analysis approach was used to interpret data from document review and key informant interviews with ECW staff and leadership.
The research is situated in conversation with theory and evidence concerning the roles and behaviours of international organizations (IOs) engaged in educational development, and particularly during the pandemic (e.g., Debre & Dijkstra, 2021; Shultz & Viczko, 2021). Represented in this literature are discussions concerning how IOs have understood, framed, and responded to COVID-19-related educational crises. The mantra of “Build Back Better” (BBB) became a cornerstone of IO discourse; however, how BBB would be operationalized, what it would require of partners, what education futures were imagined and pursued, and whose agendas and interests are prioritized have become key points of debate in the literature (Morris et al., 2022).
Argued is that ECW’s response to the pandemic reflects elements of both change and continuity. The analysis describes ECW’s framing of COVID-19 education crises in EiE contexts, explore its priorities and the nature and scope of its response activities, as well as probe the motivations, logic, and evidence driving processes of change and continuity in the organization. On one hand, the urgency of the crisis spurred an increase in ECW’s fundraising activities and its First Emergency Response (FER) funding window was used to offer rapid support for partner countries, with the organization publishing details of its COVID-19 response beginning early in March 2020. On the other hand, three years later, the pandemic and the rhetoric of BBB is virtually non-existent in the work and publications of ECW.

Debre, M. J., Dijkstra, H. (2021). COVID-19 and policy responses by international organizations: Crisis of
liberal international order or window of opportunity? Global Policy, 12(4), 443-454.
Morris, P., Park, C., Auld, E. (2022). Covid and the future of education: Global agencies ‘building back
better’. Compare, 52(5), 691-711.
Shultz, L., and Viczko, M. (2021). What are we saving? Tracing governing knowledge and truth
discourse in global COVID-19 policy responses

Author

• Caroline Manion, OISE, University of Toronto