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

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

During COVID19, international organizations emerged with new ideas and problem frames for international educational development. Arguably, they used the pandemic as a venue for re-visiting their own mandates and missions, and strengthening their individual and collective power as policy actors on the international stage.

In this panel, four papers are presented that explore how the roles and approaches of international organizations involved in education development evolved during and after the pandemic.

• In the first paper, “Between agenda setting and firefighting”, authors Feitosa de Britto and Diaz Rios compare the COVID19 responses of the OECD, UNESCO and the World Bank and their promotion of global education “build back better” approach to educational change. In it they look particularly at the use of evidence, and the resignification and emphasis on such terms as learning loss, foundational skills, digital learning, innovation, well-being, among others. They draw on 15 interviews and discursive analysis of more than 100 documents published during the crisis.
• In the second paper, “Normal or extraordinary crises: How international organizations frame the urgency of education in emergencies (UNICEF and UNHCR)” Abdelaziz and Menashy present a comparative case study UNICEF and UNHCR, examining how they determines priorities and frames the nature and urgency of humanitarian crises. Through analyses of policy documents, social media, public announcements, websites, and interviews with key informants representing each organization, the paper explores the ways in which UNICEF and UNHCR frame educational crises and the degree to which such framings reflect the “normal” versus “extraordinary” binary.
• In the third paper “Education Systems Reform, “What works” Interventions, and Complicated Crises: How the World Bank’s Approach to the Education Sector is Changing”, Mundy, Ceau and Thibeault-Orsi explore the changing nature of the Bank’s education sector projects/operations, in order to understand how they are embedding new theories of change about improving educational systems and building state capacity. It also explores how the World Bank’s education sector portfolio is responding to multiple crisis: climate, COVID19 and war/refugees and migration, and asks what impact these considerations have had on the Bank’s portfolio.
• In the fourth paper, “COVID-19 Education Crises in Contexts of Emergency and Protracted Crises: Exploring Change and Continuity in Education Cannot Wait’s Response to the Pandemic”, Manion presents the findings of a qualitative study of the work of Education Cannot Wait in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, covering the period 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.

Sub Unit

• General Pool

Chair

• Caroline Manion, OISE, University of Toronto

Individual Presentations

• 1. Between agenda-setting and "firefighting:" International organizations as policy entrepreneurs during COVID-19 - Tatiana Feitosa de Britto, OISE/University of Toronto; Claudia Milena Diaz-Rios, OISE University of Toronto

• COVID-19 Education Crises in Contexts of Emergency and Protracted Crises: Exploring Education Cannot Wait’s Response to the Pandemic - Caroline Manion, OISE, University of Toronto

Discussant

• Antoni Verger, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona