challenges in education meaning

Four of the biggest problems facing education—and four trends that could make a difference

Eduardo velez bustillo, harry a. patrinos.

In 2022, we published, Lessons for the education sector from the COVID-19 pandemic , which was a follow up to,  Four Education Trends that Countries Everywhere Should Know About , which summarized views of education experts around the world on how to handle the most pressing issues facing the education sector then. We focused on neuroscience, the role of the private sector, education technology, inequality, and pedagogy.

Unfortunately, we think the four biggest problems facing education today in developing countries are the same ones we have identified in the last decades .

1. The learning crisis was made worse by COVID-19 school closures

Low quality instruction is a major constraint and prior to COVID-19, the learning poverty rate in low- and middle-income countries was 57% (6 out of 10 children could not read and understand basic texts by age 10). More dramatic is the case of Sub-Saharan Africa with a rate even higher at 86%. Several analyses show that the impact of the pandemic on student learning was significant, leaving students in low- and middle-income countries way behind in mathematics, reading and other subjects.  Some argue that learning poverty may be close to 70% after the pandemic , with a substantial long-term negative effect in future earnings. This generation could lose around $21 trillion in future salaries, with the vulnerable students affected the most.

2. Countries are not paying enough attention to early childhood care and education (ECCE)

At the pre-school level about two-thirds of countries do not have a proper legal framework to provide free and compulsory pre-primary education. According to UNESCO, only a minority of countries, mostly high-income, were making timely progress towards SDG4 benchmarks on early childhood indicators prior to the onset of COVID-19. And remember that ECCE is not only preparation for primary school. It can be the foundation for emotional wellbeing and learning throughout life; one of the best investments a country can make.

3. There is an inadequate supply of high-quality teachers

Low quality teaching is a huge problem and getting worse in many low- and middle-income countries.  In Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, the percentage of trained teachers fell from 84% in 2000 to 69% in 2019 . In addition, in many countries teachers are formally trained and as such qualified, but do not have the minimum pedagogical training. Globally, teachers for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects are the biggest shortfalls.

4. Decision-makers are not implementing evidence-based or pro-equity policies that guarantee solid foundations

It is difficult to understand the continued focus on non-evidence-based policies when there is so much that we know now about what works. Two factors contribute to this problem. One is the short tenure that top officials have when leading education systems. Examples of countries where ministers last less than one year on average are plentiful. The second and more worrisome deals with the fact that there is little attention given to empirical evidence when designing education policies.

To help improve on these four fronts, we see four supporting trends:

1. Neuroscience should be integrated into education policies

Policies considering neuroscience can help ensure that students get proper attention early to support brain development in the first 2-3 years of life. It can also help ensure that children learn to read at the proper age so that they will be able to acquire foundational skills to learn during the primary education cycle and from there on. Inputs like micronutrients, early child stimulation for gross and fine motor skills, speech and language and playing with other children before the age of three are cost-effective ways to get proper development. Early grade reading, using the pedagogical suggestion by the Early Grade Reading Assessment model, has improved learning outcomes in many low- and middle-income countries. We now have the tools to incorporate these advances into the teaching and learning system with AI , ChatGPT , MOOCs and online tutoring.

2. Reversing learning losses at home and at school

There is a real need to address the remaining and lingering losses due to school closures because of COVID-19.  Most students living in households with incomes under the poverty line in the developing world, roughly the bottom 80% in low-income countries and the bottom 50% in middle-income countries, do not have the minimum conditions to learn at home . These students do not have access to the internet, and, often, their parents or guardians do not have the necessary schooling level or the time to help them in their learning process. Connectivity for poor households is a priority. But learning continuity also requires the presence of an adult as a facilitator—a parent, guardian, instructor, or community worker assisting the student during the learning process while schools are closed or e-learning is used.

To recover from the negative impact of the pandemic, the school system will need to develop at the student level: (i) active and reflective learning; (ii) analytical and applied skills; (iii) strong self-esteem; (iv) attitudes supportive of cooperation and solidarity; and (v) a good knowledge of the curriculum areas. At the teacher (instructor, facilitator, parent) level, the system should aim to develop a new disposition toward the role of teacher as a guide and facilitator. And finally, the system also needs to increase parental involvement in the education of their children and be active part in the solution of the children’s problems. The Escuela Nueva Learning Circles or the Pratham Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) are models that can be used.

3. Use of evidence to improve teaching and learning

We now know more about what works at scale to address the learning crisis. To help countries improve teaching and learning and make teaching an attractive profession, based on available empirical world-wide evidence , we need to improve its status, compensation policies and career progression structures; ensure pre-service education includes a strong practicum component so teachers are well equipped to transition and perform effectively in the classroom; and provide high-quality in-service professional development to ensure they keep teaching in an effective way. We also have the tools to address learning issues cost-effectively. The returns to schooling are high and increasing post-pandemic. But we also have the cost-benefit tools to make good decisions, and these suggest that structured pedagogy, teaching according to learning levels (with and without technology use) are proven effective and cost-effective .

4. The role of the private sector

When properly regulated the private sector can be an effective education provider, and it can help address the specific needs of countries. Most of the pedagogical models that have received international recognition come from the private sector. For example, the recipients of the Yidan Prize on education development are from the non-state sector experiences (Escuela Nueva, BRAC, edX, Pratham, CAMFED and New Education Initiative). In the context of the Artificial Intelligence movement, most of the tools that will revolutionize teaching and learning come from the private sector (i.e., big data, machine learning, electronic pedagogies like OER-Open Educational Resources, MOOCs, etc.). Around the world education technology start-ups are developing AI tools that may have a good potential to help improve quality of education .

After decades asking the same questions on how to improve the education systems of countries, we, finally, are finding answers that are very promising.  Governments need to be aware of this fact.

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Consultant, Education Sector, World Bank

Senior Adviser, Education

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Challenges in Education: A Student’s-Eye View

As many teachers know, the national discussion on education is overcrowded with opinions on teacher training, salaries, tenure, and unions -- with occasional detours through iPads, textbooks, and national policy. In fact, it seems that we listen to every interested party except the one for whom education exists in the first place: students.

We've worked one-on-one with hundreds of students over the last decade, and while they always start from "my teacher hates me" or "I'm just bad at this subject," a change in their own behaviors and beliefs consistently leads to a turnaround in grades. We've seen firsthand all the ways that students can impede their own academic performance. We've seen how parents and our culture at large unwittingly sabotage students' success. And then we've seen our society give teachers full responsibility for a process that is only partially in their hands. That has to stop.

Teachers are essential and influential, guiding their students through new material, drawing out analysis and excitement about ideas. But even the best teacher is helpless against the student looking straight at the board but thinking about lunch. Students are, ultimately, the only party with the ability to truly transform the state of education. And as it turns out, what they have to say is quite telling.

What the Students Are Thinking

A year ago, we were approached by The Princeton Review to help them design a survey about Student Life in America . Rather than focusing on academic performance, they wanted to understand students' academic process. What goes through their heads when they do homework? Where do they turn for help when they're stuck? How do they think and feel during a typical school day? In short, the survey was designed to find out what only students can know: their thoughts, feelings, and goals. The results suggest that if we want to fix education, then we have to move away from blaming teachers, resources, or classroom size, and start talking seriously about what students are doing to create academic success -- and how we can best support them in that process.

Here are some of the survey's most telling results.

Too much homework or too much homework time?

Students readily reported that they spend one-third of their study time stressing out . We hear parents and students constantly complain about teachers assigning too much homework. Based on volume of hours alone, that makes sense. However, what the students have reported provides a totally different picture.

For every three hours that students seem to be spending on homework, only two are productive. Concerns about whether they'll do well, whether they're smart enough to understand the assignment, what grade they have, and how everyone else in class is doing can derail them in a major way. We could cut out that hour so that the work gets done and they can move on. Rather than assigning less homework, we should focus on helping students work more effectively. In preparing students for the modern world, that strategy is essential. In the working world, they won't have time to spend one third of their day unproductively stressing out. They need to learn how to stay on top.

They do care. . . about the wrong things.

One of the most interesting results was that 90 percent of students reported that they want good grades . For an educator, that's thrilling to hear. But only six percent of students want good grades for the sake of learning . Many students are so concerned with grades, tests, and college admissions that they've lost what's really important about school. When they're not succeeding, they feel terrible about school. The irony is that the act of learning in itself releases dopamine, the brain's ultimate feel-good chemical. That’s why those "aha!" moments feel so good. We can help students make that virtuous cycle happen. Better grades and scores matter, but you don’t get them by focusing endlessly on them. Better results come from finding better ways of working -- from improving process.

When students are so obsessed with results -- what they need to learn and what grades they'll get -- that they ignore how learning works. The frequent explanations ("math is stupid" and "my teacher just hates me") are obviously unproductive and untrue. But the survey participants made it clear that we must help students by making sure that they need to know how to learn, manage their stress, ask for help, and get that dopamine kick they deserve.

Here are just a few survey-inspired ways to help your students improve their approach:

1. Do a side-by-side comparison of cramming and learning.

We educators obviously love the subjects we teach and want kids to love learning for its own sake. However, the benefits of learning aren't obvious to students. Help them do a side-by-side comparison of learning and cramming over both the short and long term. While students' preferred strategy of last-minute cramming seems "smart" (why study every night when you can study just one night?), it doesn’t lead to long-term learning. Within hours or days, that material is forgotten, and students end up needing to relearn and refresh basic concepts, month after month or year after year. Also, by choosing to cram the material, students are denying themselves that dopamine release. Since they want to do well in school and have a non-miserable existence, once they realize that actually learning helps them do both, they'll choose it more and more often.

2. Teach your students to substitute action for stress.

Not only is spending one third of your study time freaking out unpleasant, it's a huge waste of time. Doing any small thing that gets your work closer to done is a much better use of time. Getting students to recognize when they're freaking out and substitute that worry for any small, productive action will help them massively reduce the amount of time they spend studying. Best of all, their results will improve, too!

3. Challenge students to produce actionable feedback.

We're all familiar with good and bad tech support, and this is no different. Comments like "Math is stupid" or "When am I going to use this in real life?" often lead to arguments about the virtues of a subject. But the real issue is that when we feel like throwing our computer out the window, it's not because computers are a waste of time. It's because the thing won't work, and we have no idea how to fix it. So we should encourage students to stop discussing results and start discussing actions. Instead of letting them talk in terms of grades and ability, turn the focus to what they actually did and why:

• What steps did you take?
• What could you do differently next time?
• How did you get this answer?
• What specific piece needs improvement?

Solutions at Our Fingertips

The fixes that come from listening to kids don’t require more money, more resources, or consensus in Congress. Talking to our elected leaders doesn't seem to have fixed education. Talking to our kids just might.

How have you gotten your students to take charge of their learning in the classroom? What strategies do you use to help students manage stress? What are your policies for making sure that students can come to you for help? We'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences in the comments section below.

Smithsonian Voices

From the Smithsonian Museums

SMITHSONIAN EDUCATION

Teaching About Real-World, Transdisciplinary Problems and Phenomena through Convergence Education

In its 2018 Federal STEM Strategic Plan, a collaboration of government agencies wrote that science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education should move through a pathway where disciplines “converge” and where teaching and learning moves from disciplinary to transdisciplinary. Classroom examples help spotlight what this framework can look like in practice.

Carol O’Donnell & Kelly J. Day

In today’s K-12 classrooms, students are learning a lot more than just reading, writing, and arithmetic. Today, problem- and phenomenon-based learning means that students are tackling some of the most complex topics of our times, whether it is cybersecurity, innovation and entrepreneurship, climate change, biodiversity loss, infectious disease, water scarcity, energy security, food security, or deforestation. Educators are using transdisciplinary learning to help students address deep scientific questions and tackle broad societal needs.

Convergence Education

But how does an educator, who is assigned to teach one discipline (e.g., reading, writing, math, science, social studies, or art) bring together multiple disciplines to teach about complex socio-scientific problems or opportunities? Researchers at the National Science Foundation (NSF) call this “ convergence ”, and say that it has three primary characteristics:

• A deep scientific phenomenon (that is, an observable event or happening that can be explained, such as clean groundwater);
• An emerging problem  (that is, something that can be solved through the development of an object, tool, process or system and includes multiple criteria and constraints, such a new water filtration system); or,
• A pressing societal need (that is, a need to help people and society, such as ensuring all community members have access to clean water to stay healthy).
• It has deep integration across multiple disciplines. This is important because complex socio-scientific problems and phenomena cannot be explained or solved by looking at them through one perspective (e.g., environmental, social, economic, or ethical). Instead, experts from different disciplines must work together to blend their knowledge, theories, and expertise to come up with a comprehensive solution.
• Finally, it is transdisciplinary . That means no one discipline can solve the problem on its own.

From Disciplinary to Transdisciplinary

What do we mean by “transdisciplinary?” In its Federal STEM Strategic Plan, a collaboration of government agencies wrote in 2018 that science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education should move through a pathway where disciplines converge and where teaching and learning moves from disciplinary to transdisciplinary . They wrote:

“Problems that are relevant to people’s lives, communities, or society, as a whole, often cross disciplinary boundaries, making them inherently engaging and interesting. The transdisciplinary integration of STEM teaching and learning across STEM fields and with other fields such as the humanities and the arts enriches all fields and draws learners to authentic challenges from local to global in scale.” ( OSTP, 2018, p 20 )

STEAM education expert and author Joanne Vasquez, former Executive Director of the National Science Teaching Association (NSTA), and her co-authors explain it this way:

• Disciplinary – Students learn concepts and skills separately in isolation.
• Multidisciplinary – Students learn concepts and skills separately in each discipline but in reference to a common theme.
• Interdisciplinary – Students learn concepts and skills from two or more disciplines that are tightly linked so as to deepen knowledge and skills.
• Transdisciplinary – By undertaking real-world problems or explaining phenomena, students apply knowledge and skills from two or more disciplines to help shape the learning experience.

A Classroom Example

Let’s try an example, using images selected by one of the co-authors who is a master STEAM teacher and former Einstein Fellow at the U.S. Department of Energy, Kelly J. Day. Imagine you were teaching about plants so that your students can help people experiencing food insecurities in their community. This requires fundamental disciplinary knowledge about science, mathematics, social studies, civic engagement, and entrepreneurship. What would it look like to move along the pathway to convergence , from disciplinary to transdisciplinary teaching and learning?

• Using a disciplinary approach, a science teacher might ask students to examine the properties of soil or have students study how tomato seeds germinate in each soil type. In this case, the teacher is identifying an isolated concept (fact, idea, or practice) that is aligned with only one discipline (e.g., science).
• Using a multidisciplinary approach, a math teacher might ask the students who learned about soil properties and tomato seed germination in science class, to calculate in math class the cost of buying 1 pound of soil, 20 packets of tomato seeds, 10 packets of pepper seeds, and 3 garden tools. The concept now involves multiple disciplines addressed independently on different aspects of the same concept.
• Using an interdisciplinary approach, multiple teachers—for example, one social studies, one science, and one math—might work together to have students plant a variety of seeds in different soil types to grow vegetables on the school grounds. Each teacher would ask students to contribute to the collective problem—studying soil properties and seed germination in their science class; calculating the cost of the materials in their math class; and finally, drawing a map of the local school grounds in their social studies class to help decide where to place the garden based on geographic direction.  In this case, students and teachers across disciplines work together in an integrated way that makes the concept more authentic and real-world (but, like the salad shown here, you can still identify the individual component disciplines or parts).
• Finally, using a transdisciplinary approach, you would walk into any one classroom and not be able to tell which discipline(s) are being taught because they have “converged.” For example, students might be asked to come up with an entrepreneurial project to raise funds for those in need in their local community. They decide to design and build a garden so they can make and sell salsa, while also helping people experiencing food insecurities in their community. In this case, students identify a complex real-world problem and work together to create a shared approach to identifying the phenomenon or solving the problem.

A Pathway to Convergence

Teaching for convergence is not about replacing disciplinary teaching with transdisciplinary teaching; instead, it is about a pathway to convergence . Students, especially in the early grades, still require a strong foundation of disciplinary knowledge and skills. The transition along the pathway to convergence , from disciplinary to transdisciplinary teaching and learning, does not just happen—it is intentional, explicit, and measured.

Transdisciplinary teaching and learning that leads students along a pathway to convergence has many different names that you may be familiar with already—phenomenon-based learning, problem-based learning, place-based learning, project-based learning, civic engagement, inquiry-based learning, entrepreneurship education, and applied learning. No matter what you call it, this type of teaching is important to prepare today’s students for tomorrow’s complex world. And it is becoming more common in schools, despite the barriers that exist in the U.S. (e.g., aligning with standards; finding time in the curriculum; finding common planning time to collaborate with other teachers).

Free Teaching Resources

The Smithsonian and other federal agencies that support STEAM teachers are here to help. We develop resources to support educators as they move  from disciplinary to transdisciplinary teaching and learning along the pathway to convergence. At the Smithsonian, for example, we have a front door to discoveries in science, history, art, and culture. We bring these disciplines together by integrating inquiry-based science education, civic engagement, place-based education, global citizenship education, and education for sustainable development, so that students can engage in local action for global goals , whether it is about food security or environmental justice .

Convergence education and a transdisciplinary approach to teaching and learning helps students develop critical reasoning skills, systemic understanding of complex issues, scientific literacy, perspective taking, and consensus building, all as they plan and carry out local actions for social good. Teachers and students across the country, with the support of the Smithsonian and other federal partners, are tackling the most pressing environmental and social issues of our time, supporting young students as they take action to address complex global issues, and helping them find solutions that address societal needs through convergence education.

Acknowledgement : This article is based on the work of the Federal Coordination in STEM Education (FC-STEM) Interagency Working Group on Convergence, under the direction of Quincy Brown and Nafeesa Owens of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. The IWG is co-led by Louie Lopez and Jorge Valdes, with support from Executive Secretary Emily Kuehn.

Editor's Note: To learn more about the Convergence Education framework, join Carol O’Donnell and Kelly J. Day, along with a panel of federal educators and practitioners at the Smithsonian's National Education Summit on July 27-28, 2022. More information is available here:  https://s.si.edu/EducationSummit2022 

Carol O’Donnell | READ MORE

Dr. Carol O’Donnell is Director of the Smithsonian Science Education Center, dedicated to transforming K-12 Education through Science™ in collaboration with communities across the globe. Carol serves on numerous boards and committees dedicated to science education and is on the part-time faculty of the Physics Department at George Washington University, where she earned her doctorate. Carol began her career as a primary school teacher. Her TedX Talk demonstrates her passion for “doing science” and “object-driven learning.”

Kelly J. Day | READ MORE

Kelly Day is the Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow at the Department of Energy and is on the Interagency Working Group for Convergence Education. She also helps run the DOE-sponsored National Science Bowl. Prior to her placement at the DOE, Day was a mathematics teacher and in 2015 ,Day received the Fulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching.

Top 10 risks and opportunities for education in the face of COVID-19

Subscribe to the center for universal education bulletin, rebecca winthrop rebecca winthrop director - center for universal education , senior fellow - global economy and development @rebeccawinthrop.

April 10, 2020

March 2020 will forever be known in the education community as the month when almost all the world’s schools shut their doors. On March 1, six governments instituted nationwide school closures due to the deadly coronavirus pandemic, and by the end of the month, 185 countries had closed, affecting 90 percent of the world’s students. The speed of these closures and the rapid move to distance learning has allowed little time for planning or reflection on both the potential risks to safeguard against and the potential opportunities to leverage.

With every crisis comes deep challenges and opportunities for transformation— past education crises have shown that it is possible to build back better. To help me reflect on what some of these challenges and opportunities may be, I recently spoke to Jim Knight , current member of the House of Lords, head of education for Tes Global, and former U.K. schools minister; and to Vicki Phillips , current chief of education at the National Geographic Society and a former U.S. superintendent of schools and state secretary of education. They provide perspectives from inside and outside of government in the U.K. and U.S., though their insights can likely help the many countries worldwide struggling to continue education during the pandemic.

Risks and challenges

#1: Distance learning will reinforce teaching and learning approaches that we know do not work well.

Jim: Many countries are shifting to distance learning approaches, whether through distributing physical packets of materials for students or through using technology to facilitate online learning. And there are real risks because many of these approaches can be very solitary and didactic when you’re just asking students to sit and quietly watch videos, read documents online, or click through presentations—that’s really dull. The worst form of learning is to sit passively and listen, and this may be the form that most students will receive during school closures. It serves no one well, especially those who are the furthest behind.

#2: Educators will be overwhelmed and unsupported to do their jobs well.

Vicki: Teachers had little or no notice about their schools closing and shifting to online learning—this can be challenging for anybody. They’ve shared that they are overwhelmed with all sorts of materials and products, and we are seeing educators begin to push back and request help filtering through all the resources to find those that are quality.

At the same time, teachers are just like the rest of us in that they are experiencing this strange new world as mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. They are trying to deal with their individual lives and take care of their kids and find new ways to make sure that learning continues.

#3: The protection and safety of children will be harder to safeguard.

Jim: In the U.K., we have stringent processes around checking who has access to children during school, in after-school clubs and sports. Schools have safeguard measures in place to ensure that predators toward children, such as pedophiles, can’t access young people. Now, once you move to online learning in a home environment, you can’t safeguard against this. People have to be mindful about the design of online learning so that bad individuals don’t get to children outside of their home.

#4: School closures will widen the equity gaps.

Vicki: Over the last decade or so, progress has been made in the number of students who have access to devices and connectivity, making this move to online learning possible. At the same time, not every child has access to digital devices or internet connectivity at home, and we need to ensure those kids get access to learning resources as well. This means that learning resources need to be available on every kind of device and it means, for kids who don’t have access, we still need to find a way to reach them.

#5: Poor experiences with ed-tech during the pandemic will make it harder to get buy-in later for good use of ed-tech.

Jim: We know that some students who use ed-tech during the pandemic will have a poor experience because they’re not used to it. Some people will say, “During the virus we tried the ed-tech-enabled learning approaches, it was terrible, and look at my test scores.” Yes, this will happen. People’s test scores will be impacted. People will become unhappy because the mental health effects of being isolated will be profound. We must be prepared for that. Those poor experiences are really important to learn what does and doesn’t work.

Opportunities to Leverage

#1: Blended learning approaches will be tried, tested, and increasingly used.

Jim: We know that the more engaging learning styles are ones that are more interactive, and that face-to-face learning is better than 100 percent online learning. We also know blended learning can draw on the best of both worlds and create a better learning experience than one hundred percent face-to-face learning. If, after having done 100 percent online at the end of this, I think it’s quite possible that we can then think about rebalancing the mix between face-to-face and online. Teachers will have started to innovate and experiment with these online tools and may want to continue online pedagogies as a result of all this. That’s really exciting.

#2: Teachers and schools will receive more respect, appreciation, and support for their important role in society.

Vicki: I think it will be easier to understand that schools aren’t just buildings where students go to learn, and that teachers are irreplaceable. There’s something magic about that in-person connection, that bond between teachers and their students. Having that face-to-face connection with learners and being able to support them across their unique skills⁠—that’s very hard to replicate in a distance learning environment. Also, many students access critical resources at school, such as meals, clothing, and mental health support that may not be as widely available at home.

#3: Quality teaching and learning materials will be better curated and more widely used.

Vicki: Educators are looking to other educators as well as trusted sources to help curate high-quality online learning tools. At National Geographic, we’ve curated collections for K-12 learners in our resource library. We’ve created a new landing page that allows educators, parents, and caregivers to access our free materials quickly, and inspire young people. But it’s not just teachers struggling—it’s parents and other caregivers who are trying to bring learning to life. To that end, we’re livestreaming our Explorer Classroom model that connects young people with scientists, researchers, educators, and storytellers. During this transition, we want students and families to have access to that larger world, in addition to their own backyard.

#4: Teacher collaboration will grow and help improve learning.

Jim: As a profession, I hope we come out of this crisis stronger by collaborating and working together. I’m a firm believer in not asking heavily burdened teachers to reinvent the wheel. At my company Tes, we’ve got a big resource-sharing platform for teachers, including coronavirus-related resources. There are other platforms too, such as Teachers Pay Teachers and Khan Academy, where teachers can see what others have done. A teacher could say, “well, rather than record a video with the instructional element I need, I might be able to find someone who has done that really well already.” One of the most important things teachers can do now is draw on what others are doing: Form community online, share the burden, and make things a bit easier.

#5: This crisis will help us come together across boundaries.

Vicki: We would be remiss if we didn’t take away a greater sense of empathy for each other—the idea that we can work through anything together—from this crisis. I think it’s an opportunity for the education sector to unite, forge connections across countries and continents, and truly share what works in a global way. I don’t think, prior to this crisis, that we’ve been able to do this, and we will have missed a big opportunity if we don’t try to do that now.

Jim: We will get through this stronger. I live in a divided country, and from where I sit, it looks like the U.S. is a divided country too. When you go through a big national crisis like this, you come out stronger as a country because you’ve been fighting together, working together.

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• Progress towards quality education was already slower than required before the pandemic, but COVID-19 has had devastating impacts on education, causing learning losses in four out of five of the 104 countries studied.

Without additional measures, an estimated 84 million children and young people will stay out of school by 2030 and approximately 300 million students will lack the basic numeracy and literacy skills necessary for success in life.

In addition to free primary and secondary schooling for all boys and girls by 2030, the aim is to provide equal access to affordable vocational training, eliminate gender and wealth disparities, and achieve universal access to quality higher education.

Education is the key that will allow many other Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved. When people are able to get quality education they can break from the cycle of poverty.

Education helps to reduce inequalities and to reach gender equality. It also empowers people everywhere to live more healthy and sustainable lives. Education is also crucial to fostering tolerance between people and contributes to more peaceful societies.

• To deliver on Goal 4, education financing must become a national investment priority. Furthermore, measures such as making education free and compulsory, increasing the number of teachers, improving basic school infrastructure and embracing digital transformation are essential.

What progress have we made so far?

While progress has been made towards the 2030 education targets set by the United Nations, continued efforts are required to address persistent challenges and ensure that quality education is accessible to all, leaving no one behind.

Between 2015 and 2021, there was an increase in worldwide primary school completion, lower secondary completion, and upper secondary completion. Nevertheless, the progress made during this period was notably slower compared to the 15 years prior.

What challenges remain?

According to national education targets, the percentage of students attaining basic reading skills by the end of primary school is projected to rise from 51 per cent in 2015 to 67 per cent by 2030. However, an estimated 300 million children and young people will still lack basic numeracy and literacy skills by 2030.

Economic constraints, coupled with issues of learning outcomes and dropout rates, persist in marginalized areas, underscoring the need for continued global commitment to ensuring inclusive and equitable education for all. Low levels of information and communications technology (ICT) skills are also a major barrier to achieving universal and meaningful connectivity.

Where are people struggling the most to have access to education?

Sub-Saharan Africa faces the biggest challenges in providing schools with basic resources. The situation is extreme at the primary and lower secondary levels, where less than one-half of schools in sub-Saharan Africa have access to drinking water, electricity, computers and the Internet.

Inequalities will also worsen unless the digital divide – the gap between under-connected and highly digitalized countries – is not addressed .

Are there groups that have more difficult access to education?

Yes, women and girls are one of these groups. About 40 per cent of countries have not achieved gender parity in primary education. These disadvantages in education also translate into lack of access to skills and limited opportunities in the labour market for young women.

What can we do?  

Ask our governments to place education as a priority in both policy and practice. Lobby our governments to make firm commitments to provide free primary school education to all, including vulnerable or marginalized groups.

Facts and figures

Goal 4 targets.

• Without additional measures, only one in six countries will achieve the universal secondary school completion target by 2030, an estimated 84 million children and young people will still be out of school, and approximately 300 million students will lack the basic numeracy and literacy skills necessary for success in life.
• To achieve national Goal 4 benchmarks, which are reduced in ambition compared with the original Goal 4 targets, 79 low- and lower-middle- income countries still face an average annual financing gap of $97 billion.

Source: The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2023

4.1  By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and Goal-4 effective learning outcomes

4.2  By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys have access to quality early childhood development, care and preprimary education so that they are ready for primary education

4.3  By 2030, ensure equal access for all women and men to affordable and quality technical, vocational and tertiary education, including university

4.4  By 2030, substantially increase the number of youth and adults who have relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills, for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship

4.5  By 2030, eliminate gender disparities in education and ensure equal access to all levels of education and vocational training for the vulnerable, including persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples and children in vulnerable situations

4.6  By 2030, ensure that all youth and a substantial proportion of adults, both men and women, achieve literacy and numeracy

4.7  By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development

4.A  Build and upgrade education facilities that are child, disability and gender sensitive and provide safe, nonviolent, inclusive and effective learning environments for all

4.B  By 2020, substantially expand globally the number of scholarships available to developing countries, in particular least developed countries, small island developing States and African countries, for enrolment in higher education, including vocational training and information and communications technology, technical, engineering and scientific programmes, in developed countries and other developing countries

4.C  By 2030, substantially increase the supply of qualified teachers, including through international cooperation for teacher training in developing countries, especially least developed countries and small island developing states

UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

UN Children’s Fund

UN Development Programme

Global Education First Initiative

UN Population Fund: Comprehensive sexuality education

UN Office of the Secretary General’s Envoy on Youth

Fast Facts: Quality Education

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The 10 Education Issues Everybody Should Be Talking About

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What issues have the potential to define—or re define—education in the year ahead? Is there a next “big thing” that could shift the K-12 experience or conversation?

These were the questions Education Week set out to answer in this second annual “10 Big Ideas in Education” report.

You can read about last year’s ideas here . In 2019, though, things are different.

This year, we asked Education Week reporters to read the tea leaves and analyze what was happening in classrooms, school districts, and legislatures across the country. What insights could reporters offer practitioners for the year ahead?

Some of the ideas here are speculative. Some are warning shots, others more optimistic. But all 10 of them here have one thing in common: They share a sense of urgency.

Accompanied by compelling illustrations and outside perspectives from leading researchers, advocates, and practitioners, this year’s Big Ideas might make you uncomfortable, or seem improbable. The goal was to provoke and empower you as you consider them.

Let us know what you think, and what big ideas matter to your classroom, school, or district. Tweet your comments with #K12BigIdeas .

No. 1: Kids are right. School is boring.

Out-of-school learning is often more meaningful than anything that happens in a classroom, writes Kevin Bushweller, the Executive Editor of EdWeek Market Brief. His essay tackling the relevance gap is accompanied by a Q&A with advice on nurturing, rather than stifling students’ natural curiosity. Read more.

No. 2: Teachers have trust issues. And it’s no wonder why.

Many teachers may have lost faith in the system, says Andrew Ujifusa, but they haven’t lost hope. The Assistant Editor unpacks this year’s outbreak of teacher activism. And read an account from a disaffected educator on how he built a coalition of his own. Read more.

No. 3: Special education is broken.

Forty years since students with disabilities were legally guaranteed a public school education, many still don’t receive the education they deserve, writes Associate Editor Christina A. Samuels. Delve into her argument and hear from a disability civil rights pioneer on how to create an equitable path for students. Read more.

No. 4: Schools are embracing bilingualism, but only for some students.

Staff Writer Corey Mitchell explains the inclusion problem at the heart of bilingual education. His essay includes a perspective from a researcher on dismantling elite bilingualism. Read more.

No. 5: A world without annual testing may be closer than you think.

There’s agreement that we have a dysfunctional standardized-testing system in the United States, Associate Editor Stephen Sawchuk writes. But killing it would come with some serious tradeoffs. Sawchuk’s musing on the alternatives to annual tests is accompanied by an argument for more rigorous classroom assignments by a teacher-practice expert. Read more.

No. 6: There are lessons to be learned from the educational experiences of black students in military families.

Drawing on his personal experience growing up in an Air Force family, Staff Writer Daarel Burnette II highlights emerging research on military-connected students. Learn more about his findings and hear from two researchers on what a new ESSA mandate means for these students. Read more.

No. 7: School segregation is not an intractable American problem.

Racial and economic segregation remains deeply entrenched in American schools. Staff Writer Denisa R. Superville considers the six steps one district is taking to change that. Her analysis is accompanied by an essay from the president of the American Educational Research Association on what is perpetuating education inequality. Read more.

No. 8: Consent doesn’t just belong in sex ed. class. It needs to start a lot earlier.

Assistant Editor Sarah D. Sparks looked at the research on teaching consent and found schools and families do way too little, way too late. Her report is partnered with a researcher’s practical guide to developmentally appropriate consent education. Read more.

No. 9: Education has an innovation problem.

Are education leaders spending too much time chasing the latest tech trends to maintain what they have? Staff Writer Benjamin Herold explores the innovation trap. Two technologists offer three tips for putting maintenance front and center in school management. Read more.

No. 10: There are two powerful forces changing college admissions.

Some colleges are rewriting the admissions script for potential students. Senior Contributing Writer Catherine Gewertz surveys this changing college admissions landscape. Her insights are accompanied by one teacher’s advice for navigating underserved students through the college application process. Read more.

Wait, there’s more.

Want to know what educators really think about innovation? A new Education Week Research Center survey delves into what’s behind the common buzzword for teachers, principals, and district leaders. Take a look at the survey results.

A version of this article appeared in the January 09, 2019 edition of Education Week as What’s on the Horizon for 2019?

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The 10 Biggest Challenges in Education (and How to Overcome Them)

We surveyed educators across the country to discover the 10 biggest challenges facing schools today.

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About this Issue

When the Obstacle Is the Way

Repairing the Leaky Bucket

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The Someday/Monday Dilemma

Creating Clarity on Equity in Schools

4 C’s for Better Student Engagement

Reducing Teacher Workloads

To Address Learning Gaps, Go Deeper

Let’s Talk About Mental Health

A Matter of Respect

Protecting Students’ Freedom to Learn

Grading Writing Just Got Weird

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Boosting Sight Reading

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Making an Impact Beyond the Classroom

EL Takeaways

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Education 2030: topics and issues

The debates included the following sessions:

Providing meaningful learning opportunities to out-of-school children

In this session a panel of experts explored the changes needed in countries which have large out-of-school children populations as well as examples from countries which are ‘in the final mile’. “They are all different, they don’t fit into one box” said Mary Joy Pigozzi, Director of Educate A Child (EAC). Ms Pigozzi emphasized the need for attention to children who are displaced, conflict affected, working children, and so on. Mr Albert Montivans, Head of Education Indicators and Data Analysis at UNESCO Institute for Statistics added: “one of the priorities is to better the disadvantaged”.

The session was also attended by the Minister of Education, Haiti, Nesmy Manigat, the CEO of Global Partnership for Education Alice Albright, and the Director-General in the Romanian Ministry of Education, Liliana Preoteasa. The panelists raised their voices on ‘inclusion’, ‘partnership’, ‘financing’, and ‘sustainable planning’ in order to pull youngsters into the schooling system. The session concluded with further food for thought from Mr Nesmy Manigat, the Minister of Education,Haiti: “Let’s also talk about the children who are in school, yet they do not learn. Teach them what the meaning of school is - what do we need to do in school and not only focus on the policies”.

Mobilizing Business to Realize the 2030 Education Agenda

Representatives from business and education organizations gathered at a parallel session on mobilizing business to realize the 2030 agenda. Chaired by Justin van Fleet, Chief of Staff for the UN Special Envoy for Global Education, the session established a business case to invest in education and focused on how business can coordinate action with other stakeholders. The lively discussion saw questions from the floor around ICT’s, but also issues of trust; with a representative from the Philippines asking the panel whether business cares about education or is simply benefiting from it. The President of Lego Education, Mr Jacob Kragh, said there was a sincere objective from the company “to pursue the benefit of the children and make sure they get the chance to be the best they can in life”. He said that "taking over education was by no means the objective of the private sector", and reiterated the importance of working closely with governments and the public sector. Panelists also included Vikas Pota from GEMS Education, Martina Roth from Intel Corporation and Jouko Sarvi from the Asian Development Bank.

In parallel, Argentina’s Minister of Education, Alberto Sileoni, was joined by UNESCO Director, David Atchoarena, and UN Special Advisor on Post-2015 Development Planning, Amina Mohammed, at a session on Global and regional coordination and monitoring mechanisms. The session dealt with the importance of having robust mechanisms for coordination and monitoring. Session participants looked at how global and regional mechanisms for education should work alongside the new mechanisms for the overall Sustainable Development Goal, with Mr Atchoarena pointing out that the focus on ‘country-level’ monitoring and review was much stronger in the new education agenda.

Effective Governance and Accountability

In this group session, the panelists suggested the right direction for contemporary national education governance. Namely the key policies and strategies to construct a pragmatic governance framework that is both regulatory and collaborative were suggested throughout the discussion.

The chair, Mr. Gwang-Jo Kim, Director of UNESCO’s regional office in Bangkok, Thailand, posed three questions before the discussion: How can we define the term “effective governance”. What would be the role of the private sector and how to balance between autonomy resulting from decentralization, and accountability. The panels and the participants engaged in a lively debate: “Governance should focus on dialogue between communities in society so that private sector can become stakeholders to invest in education,” stated the Minister of Education, Bolivia, Roberto Aguilar, as an answer to the second question. He also gave an example from his country where education campaigns are usually funded by private institutions, saying it is social responsibility for private entities to participate actively in the effective governance framework.

The  Minster of  Education, Democratic Republic of Congo,Maker Mwangu Famba, said the core elements of effective governance were transparency and responsibility. 

How does education contribute to sustainable development post 2015?

Sustainable development is not just about technological solutions, political regulation or financial instruments alone. The realization of the transformative power of education and the importance of cross-sectoral approaches need to be taken into account. This was the message given by Ms Amina Mohammed, Special Advisor to the UN Secretary-General on Post 2015 Development Planning, as she said that education was not simply about learning, it is about empowerment and key in the sustainable development agenda. In this session, the panel members discussed how education can address global challenges, in particular how education contributes to addressing climate change and health issues and poverty reduction.

Education is one of the most powerful tools for people to be informed about diseases, take preventative measures, recognize signs of illness early and be informed to use health care services, the speakers highlighted. Mr Mark Brown, the Minister of Finance in Cook Islands, said that current knowledge as well as new knowledge should reach not only school children but also adults, as they are the educators.

The growing interaction between education and climate change cannot be neglected, Ms Kandia Camara, Minister of National Education, Cote d’lvoire, said:  “There are school programs to teach healthy lifestyles and the importance of forests,” actions are being taken to ensure climate-safe and climate-friendly school environments.

Furthermore, Mr Renato Janine Ribeiro, Minister of Education in Brazil, expressed the difficulty of eradicating poverty, “the challenge we face is ‘hunger, they live in places that are very difficult to access”, he said. Hence, geographic placement poses as a barrier to accessibility. Yet, in order to mitigate the problem with a collective effort, he asserted that Brazil would be happy to share its valuable experience on education for sustainable development with any country in order to bolster efforts.

Towards the end of the session, the CEO of the Campaign for Popular Education, Bangladesh, Ms Rasheda Choudhury, firmly stated: “The two nonnegotiable principles are: first, education is a fundamental human right and second, it is the state’s responsibility to provide education to their every single citizen”.

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• Inclusive education

Every child has the right to quality education and learning.

There are an estimated 240 million children with disabilities worldwide. Like all children, children with disabilities have ambitions and dreams for their futures. Like all children, they need quality education to develop their skills and realize their full potential.

Yet, children with disabilities are often overlooked in policymaking, limiting their access to education and their ability to participate in social, economic and political life. Worldwide, these children are among the most likely to be out of school. They face persistent barriers to education stemming from discrimination, stigma and the routine failure of decision makers to incorporate disability in school services.

Disability is one of the most serious barriers to education across the globe.

Robbed of their right to learn, children with disabilities are often denied the chance to take part in their communities, the workforce and the decisions that most affect them.

Getting all children in school and learning

Inclusive education is the most effective way to give all children a fair chance to go to school, learn and develop the skills they need to thrive.

Inclusive education means all children in the same classrooms, in the same schools. It means real learning opportunities for groups who have traditionally been excluded – not only children with disabilities, but speakers of minority languages too.

Inclusive systems value the unique contributions students of all backgrounds bring to the classroom and allow diverse groups to grow side by side, to the benefit of all.

Inclusive education allows students of all backgrounds to learn and grow side by side, to the benefit of all.

But progress comes slowly. Inclusive systems require changes at all levels of society.

At the school level, teachers must be trained, buildings must be refurbished and students must receive accessible learning materials. At the community level, stigma and discrimination must be tackled and individuals need to be educated on the benefit of inclusive education. At the national level, Governments must align laws and policies with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities , and regularly collect and analyse data to ensure children are reached with effective services.

UNICEF’s work to promote inclusive education

To close the education gap for children with disabilities, UNICEF supports government efforts to foster and monitor inclusive education systems. Our work focuses on four key areas:

• Advocacy : UNICEF promotes inclusive education in discussions, high-level events and other forms of outreach geared towards policymakers and the general public.
• Awareness-raising : UNICEF shines a spotlight on the needs of children with disabilities by conducting research and hosting roundtables, workshops and other events for government partners.
• Capacity-building : UNICEF builds the capacity of education systems in partner countries by training teachers, administrators and communities, and providing technical assistance to Governments.
• Implementation support : UNICEF assists with monitoring and evaluation in partner countries to close the implementation gap between policy and practice.

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Fixing the Broken Promise of Education for All

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Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities adopts a broad categorization of persons with disabilities and reaffirms that all persons with all types of disabilities must enjoy all human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Inclusive Education: Including Children with Disabilities in Quality Learning

This document provides guidance on what Governments can do to create inclusive education systems.

Towards Inclusive Education: The Impact of Disability on School Attendance in Developing Countries

Using cross-nationally comparable and nationally representative data from 18 surveys in 15 countries, this paper investigates how disability affects school attendance.

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How does technology challenge teacher education?

Lina kaminskienė.

1 Education Academy, Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania

Sanna Järvelä

2 Faculty of Education and Psychology, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland

Erno Lehtinen

3 Department of Teacher Education, University of Turku, Turku, Finland

Associated Data

The paper is based on openly available data.

The paper presents an overview of challenges and demands related to teachers’ digital skills and technology integration into educational content and processes. The paper raises a debate how technologies have created new skills gaps in pre-service and in-service teacher training and how that affected traditional forms of teacher education. Accordingly, it is discussed what interventions might be applicable to different contexts to address these challenges. It is argued that technologies should be viewed both as the field where new competences should be developed and at the same time as the method used in developing learning environments for teacher students.

Introduction

In the last few decades, national authorities and multinational organisations have emphasised the importance of increasing the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in schools and universities (Flecknoe, 2002 ; Roztocki et al., 2019 ; UNESCO ICT Competency Framework for Teachers, 2018 ). This poses a double challenge for teacher education: determining how new technologies can be used to improve the quality of learning experiences that student teachers receive during their university studies and identifying what kinds of new skills future teachers will need for teaching in technologically rich school environments. Several of the arguments in favour of greater use of ICT in schools are based on the belief that due to the general digitisation of the workforce, it is vital that students acquire good digital skills at an early age. However, it has also been argued that the use of ICT will be engaging for students and can thus result in better learning outcomes (Cheung & Slavin, 2013 ; Gloria, 2015 ). A number of large meta-analyses have shown that intervention studies utilising technology have positive effects on students’ motivation and learning (Fadda et al., 2022 ; Wouters et al., 2013 ).

However, when large-scale national and international evaluation studies have examined the relationship between the use of ICT and student achievement, the results have been mixed. Researchers have reported that re-analyses of large international evaluation studies, including the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMMS) and Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), indicate that there is either no relationship or a negative relationship between the frequency of ICT use in teaching and students’ achievements (Eickelmann et al., 2016 ; Papanastasiou et al., 2003 ).

The mixed results regarding the impact of ICT suggest that there are qualitative differences between the ways in which technology is implemented. In intervention studies, ICT applications have typically been used with careful planning, with extensive professional development for teachers conducting the experiment and with continuous support from researchers, whereas large-scale evaluation studies have focused on regular classrooms without such support. When technology is implemented in these latter situations, the pedagogical quality of the technology application is determined by the teachers’ knowledge and skills. However, there is a great deal of variation in the knowledge and competences of teachers when it comes to using technology in their classrooms (Valtonen et al., 2016 ). This highlights the importance of the in-service training of teachers while at the same time calling attention to pre-service teachers’ opportunities to acquire the competencies necessary to implement technology in their classrooms.

What does the development of technology mean for teacher education and how does it challenge traditional forms and content of the discipline? During the past few decades, a large number of policy documents and scientific studies have addressed this issue (Bakir, 2015 ). Different perspectives can be taken into account when discussing the influence of technology on teacher education. Several studies have examined the skills that will be necessary to apply technology to pedagogical practice in the future. This topic has been explored from several perspectives, such as teacher students’ technology literacy or their knowledge of technological pedagogical content (Mishra & Koehler, 2006 ). To ensure that future teachers possess adequate technical skills, standards and recommendations have been developed regarding the content of teacher education programmes. Rather than simply focusing on basic technological skills, the main emphasis has been on the knowledge and skills associated with the pedagogical use of technology (Erstad et al., 2021 ). Moreover, technology can provide many opportunities to develop novel methods to improve the quality of teacher education, such as the development of new methods for conducting research in the field of teacher education. In this special issue, these issues are addressed from a variety of theoretical and methodological perspectives.

Technology integration and content in teacher education

Given the many ways in which technology can be used in education, pre-service teachers’ pedagogical and technical competences in using ICT in teaching have different dimensions. For instance, Tondeur et al. ( 2017 ) developed a test to measure pre-service teachers’ ICT abilities and applied it to a large sample of Belgian teacher candidates. According to the findings, there are two dimensions to ICT competences: (1) competencies for supporting students’ use of ICT in class and (2) competencies for using ICT to create instructional materials. Some studies have also reported barriers that hinder the organisation of adequate teacher education to develop these skills, such as faculty beliefs and skills (Bakir, 2015 ; Polly et al., 2010 ).

The experiences pre-service teachers acquire during their teacher studies have also been shown to influence how willing and skilled they are when it comes to integrating technology in their classrooms (Agyei & Voogt, 2011 ). Additionally, studies have shown that the opportunity for teacher students to observe advanced technology applications in real-world settings is important for their future professional development (Gromseth et al., 2010 ). Hence, it is not sufficient to take formal courses in ICT or educational technology without applying these skills in the classroom.

Finnish pre-service teacher education stresses not only ICT skills but also teachers’ competences, such as strategic learning skills and collaboration competences. Häkkinen et al. ( 2017 ) identified five profiles among Finnish first-year pre-service teachers (N = 872) using perceptions of the teachers’ strategic learning skills and collaboration dispositions and investigated what background variables explained membership to those profiles. The most robust factor explaining membership in the profiles was life satisfaction. For example, pre-service teachers in a profile group with high strategic learning skills and high collaboration dispositions showed the highest anticipated life satisfaction after 5 years. Their results demonstrate the need to develop both ICT skills and learning competences in pre-service teacher education.

Use of technological innovations in organising teacher education

An analysis of the nature of experience and how practise can optimally enhance expertise has demonstrated the importance of deliberate practise (Ericsson et al., 1993 ), defined as an intensive practise that is purposefully focused on developing specific aspects of performance. To achieve this, it is necessary to have the opportunity to practise the most demanding aspects of performance with a large number of repetitions. Feedback from a tutor or coach also plays an important role in deliberate practise (Ericsson, 1993 ). Although deliberate practise has already been applied in some teacher education studies (e.g. Bronkhorst, 2011 ), its main aspect, repeated practise of challenging tasks and informed feedback, has been difficult to apply in traditional teacher education settings. Recent studies have shown that technology can contribute to the development of training methods that better reflect the main principles of deliberate practise.

There is a long tradition of using video technology in teacher education; such technology was first applied in a systematic manner in the 1970s (Nagro & Cornelius, 2013 ). Since then, a number of video-assisted instructional designs have been developed to provide teacher students with opportunities to learn from expert teachers, reflect on their own teaching behaviour and practise professional skills that would not otherwise be possible without this technology. Digital videos that are easy to use and various web platforms that facilitate the sharing and annotation of videos have opened up new opportunities for the development of novel learning environments in the field of teacher education (e.g. Sommerhoff et al., 2022 ). In the past few years, models for using videos recorded by mobile eye-tracking technology in teacher education have also been developed (e.g. Pouta et al., 2021 ).

Simulations are widely used in medical education, and a meta-analysis found that deliberate practise with simulations is superior to traditional clinical training in medical education (McGaghie et al., 2011 ). The use of simulations in teacher education is also gradually increasing. In their review of the use of simulations in teacher education, Theelen et al. ( 2019 ) synthesised the findings of 15 studies that applied computer-based simulations in teacher education. Several studies have demonstrated (Ferdig & Pytash, 2020 ; Samuelsson et al., 2022 ) that classroom simulations increase students’ self-efficacy and confidence in their teaching abilities. Classroom simulations were also found to have a positive impact on the development of classroom management skills.

New technologies can also be used in research on teaching and learning. Digitalisation has provided more ways to collect data and understand the teaching–learning process with multiple data channels and modalities. Multiple layers of data can be collected from contextual interactions, such as high-quality video data, psychophysiological measures and computer logs. With learning analytics, for example, these data can be used to create teacher dashboards, thus fulfilling students’ need for teacher scaffolds (Knoop-van Campen & Molenaar, 2020 ). Recently, eye-tracking technology has also been used to analyse teachers’ and student teachers’ abilities to notice relevant events in classrooms (Gegenfurtner et al., 2020 ; Pouta et al., 2021 ). Eye-movement technology, which has been used to model expert performance in other professional fields (Gegenfurtner et al., 2017 ), could also lead to promising training methods for teacher education.

Articles in this special issue

Three of the articles (Basilotta‑Gómez‑Pablos et al., 2022 ; Peciuliauskiene et al.’s, 2022 ; Kulaksız & Toran, 2022 ) included in this special issue deal with digital competences and interventions aimed at enhancing them.

Basilotta‑Gómez‑Pablos et al. (in this issue) synthesised 56 studies on higher education teachers’ digital competences. The authors used special software called SciMAT to analyse the content of the articles and to present thematic networks. Their review of the literature revealed that the topic is timely and that the number of relevant studies is increasing rapidly. The reviewed studies generally relied on teachers’ self-reports and self-evaluations of their abilities. Overall, the results indicated that the participants were aware of their insufficient knowledge and skills in the area of digital technology. According to the synthesis, many of the articles describe teachers’ experiences of various projects and activities aimed at improving their digital competences; however, many of these articles describe informal learning using internet tools and social networks. The authors conclude that their review clearly shows the gap in the evaluation of teachers’ competence in teaching and learning practice. Their recommendation is that more interventions and training programmes be created to support the development of teachers’ digital competence.

• The recent challenges in education caused by the pandemic situation raised teachers’ awareness on the gap of their digital skills.
• Despite the developed national or EU digital competences frameworks the trend remains that the development of digital skills is not systemic and lacks coherence in in-service and pre-service teacher education.
• Further studies may bring more insights regarding more effective interventions to teaching practices with a wider application of digital technologies.

Peciuliauskiene et al.’s ( 2022 ) paper presents the results of their survey of two Lithuanian universities that offer teacher education programmes. Their questionnaire focused on information literacy (search and evaluation) and ICT self-efficacy. According to their results, both information literacy variables predicted teacher students’ ICT self-efficacy. Additionally, there was an indirect relationship between information evaluation and ICT self-efficacy. The findings of the study are discussed in terms of their theoretical and practical implications. The research indicates that information search ability does not depend on a person’s digital nativity, contrary to what is sometimes assumed when referring to the younger generation of pre-service teachers. As an ICT literacy component, information evaluation has become particularly pertinent during the COVID-19 situation and recent challenges related to distinguishing credible information from the vast amount of fake news and propaganda. It is also noted that optimal time and resources should be planned for the development of information search and evaluation abilities; however, more time should be allocated for the development of information search literacy, as it directly predicts pre-service teachers’ ICT self-efficacy. Based on the findings of this study, we identify the following trends and implications for further studies:

• ICT self-efficacy of teachers contribute to the enhancement of teaching and learning process however, ICT self-efficacy should not be limited to specific ICT skills but rather on rethinking the organisation of the teaching process and rethinking the principles of teaching. In other words, the development of digital skills alone without integrating them with specific pedagogical content knowledge and teaching strategies would be less beneficial.
• Further studies could be focused on how digital skills development could be better aligned with the development of teacher pedagogical strategies and specific subject areas.

The starting point of Kulaksız and Toran’s study ( 2022 ) was the observation that, despite pre-service teachers’ participation in courses on ICT integration, these teachers are still not confident about their competences to apply their knowledge in practice. In their study, Kulaksız and Toran used the so-called praxeological approach, which aims to produce beneficial knowledge and skills and to organise a democratic and participatory environment. The results indicate that the participants were prepared to transform their skills into practical pedagogical situations due to the personal development they experienced during and after the completion of the co-created course. As pre-service teachers could co-create the technology course, this allowed them to develop not only digital competences but also self-regulated learning skills, collaborative project development skills and peer mentoring skills, which contributed to building their sustainable motivation—an important component of teachers’ self-efficacy. This article highlights that.

• Teachers’ motivation is increased through participatory design in their professional development practices which allows to achieve a more holistic development of digital skills in combination with cognitive and non-cognitive competences.
• Further studies on how co-teaching contributes to digital skills development and innovative teaching strategies would allow to find more attractive models for teachers professional development.

The aforementioned three articles about digital competencies provide different perspectives on the issue, but they all emphasise the complexity of those competencies while also suggesting new approaches to deal with these challenges. In two of the articles, technology was not the focus of the studies but a method used in developing learning environments for teacher students.

In their study, Martin et al. (in this issue) investigated whether a video-based multimedia application about classroom teaching could be used to enhance teacher students’ professional vision. A teacher’s professional vision is their ability to observe and interpret important events in the classroom and determine the most appropriate teaching activities related to these events. Teacher education faces a variety of challenges because teacher students are unable to readily translate the knowledge they learn through formal teacher education into situation-specific skills that can be applied in actual classroom settings. The aim of the study was to help students make this translation with the aid of a video-based simulation developed using the findings of multimedia research. The simulation presented the classroom videos as short segments and provided prompts aimed at facilitating the students’ self-explanations. In the intervention study, they applied two versions of the video-based simulation: one with features based on multimedia research and one without these features. During the training, the segmented simulation with the self-explanation prompt resulted in increased noticing of relevant events in the teaching–learning process. In the comparison of pre-test and post-test results, all groups participating in the video training developed considerably in their professional vision, but the video simulation with the two multimedia elements did not differ significantly from the video training without these elements. The authors concluded that further research on the optimal implementation of the simulation is needed. Major issues raised by this article were:

• It confirms previous studies which have shown that the importance of the use of classroom videos in teacher education.
• When new methods (e.g. the multimedia elements added to the videos) are applied in interventions, it is important to pay attention to qualitative changes in learning processes and not only on immediate learning gains.
• The results also indicate that methods which have been effective in one context do not necessarily work in a new environment.

Nickl et al.’s study (in this issue) examined how video-based simulations can be used to enhance pre-service teachers’ assessment skills. The aim was to analyse individual learning processes in a simulated environment by taking into account learners’ cognitive and motivational-affective characteristics. Their study applied a person-oriented approach to analyse how these learner characteristics relate to students’ situated learning experiences and performance. In the latent profile analysis, three profiles were identified: one with high knowledge and average motivation-affect, one with high motivation-affect and average knowledge and one with below average knowledge and motivation-affect. Based on the results, it was confirmed that the motivated profile resulted in positive motivational experiences in the situation, while the knowledgeable profile resulted in relevant cognitive demands when working on the tasks. Situational experiences were also found to be related to learning outcomes when working with the simulation. In comparison to the other profiles, the cognitive profile demonstrated the most effective navigation and deep learning processes. The authors concluded that the identification of learner profiles is a promising approach that can uncover individual learner needs when working in technology-based learning environments. There lessons to learn from this study include:

• Learners prior learning and their personal characteristics can strongly mediate the outcomes of intervention programs
• Person oriented statistical analyses are promising approaches to focus on sub-groups with unique profiles.
• The challenge is to decide which individual characteristics are relevant in explaining varying effects of interventions.

Practices which stimulate change

This collection of papers disclosing different aspects of the application of technology in todays’ teacher education clearly highlights that the development of digital competences should become an integral part of pre-service and in-service teacher education. In line with the holistic view on teacher competencies (Metsäpelto et al., 2022 ), this special issue suggests that digital competences appear as a strong component within cognitive and non-cognitive competences that contribute to high-quality teaching.

The results of the studies presented in this special issue strongly reflect recent studies (Falloon, 2020 ; Lin et al., 2022 ) demonstrating that the development of mere digital skills is not sufficient; we should instead structure teacher education to promote the development of digital teaching competences, including ICT attitudes, ICT skills, data literacy and deep pedagogical understanding of the opportunities and limitations of the use of technology in education. Digitally competent teachers are more capable of integrating technologies into their regular teaching practices while also creating more appropriate conditions for personalised learning (Schmid & Petko, 2019 ). This is important because large international evaluation studies (OECD, 2014 , 2019 , 2020 ) have shown that the inadequate use of technology can be harmful for student learning.

It should also be noted that the COVID-19 pandemic created additional challenges for teachers and contributed to changes in their teaching practices and digital habits (Blume, 2020 ). Reflecting school situations caused by COVID-19, numerous studies from the last 2 years have revealed a much wider scope of application of digital technologies in education and a need to create active interactions with learners (Greenhow et al., 2021 ). They have also identified a widening gap between learners who are more digitally advanced and less digitally competent teachers (Blume, 2020 ).

Likewise, simulations and other technological applications can be used to provide richer learning opportunities in teacher education. These new tools can help develop more effective models to connect theoretical content and practical skills. A big challenge for teacher education is to create opportunities for students to deliberately practise skills that are needed in classroom teaching while at the same time deepening student teachers’ theoretical understanding of teaching–learning processes.

Author contributions

This is a collaboratively developed and discussed paper. The contribution of each author is equal. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Open Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer Nature.

Availability of data and materials

Declarations.

The authors state that they have no conflicting interests regarding the ideas of this study.

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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​Why School Absences Have ‘Exploded’ Almost Everywhere

The pandemic changed families’ lives and the culture of education: “Our relationship with school became optional.”

By Sarah Mervosh and Francesca Paris

Sarah Mervosh reports on K-12 education, and Francesca Paris is a data reporter.

In Anchorage, affluent families set off on ski trips and other lengthy vacations, with the assumption that their children can keep up with schoolwork online.

In a working-class pocket of Michigan, school administrators have tried almost everything, including pajama day, to boost student attendance.

And across the country, students with heightened anxiety are opting to stay home rather than face the classroom.

In the four years since the pandemic closed schools, U.S. education has struggled to recover on a number of fronts, from learning loss , to enrollment , to student behavior .

But perhaps no issue has been as stubborn and pervasive as a sharp increase in student absenteeism, a problem that cuts across demographics and has continued long after schools reopened.

Nationally, an estimated 26 percent of public school students were considered chronically absent last school year, up from 15 percent before the pandemic, according to the most recent data, from 40 states and Washington, D.C., compiled by the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute . Chronic absence is typically defined as missing at least 10 percent of the school year, or about 18 days, for any reason.

Source: Upshot analysis of data from Nat Malkus, American Enterprise Institute. Districts are grouped into highest, middle and lowest third.

The increases have occurred in districts big and small, and across income and race. For districts in wealthier areas, chronic absenteeism rates have about doubled, to 19 percent in the 2022-23 school year from 10 percent before the pandemic, a New York Times analysis of the data found.

Poor communities, which started with elevated rates of student absenteeism, are facing an even bigger crisis: Around 32 percent of students in the poorest districts were chronically absent in the 2022-23 school year, up from 19 percent before the pandemic.

Even districts that reopened quickly during the pandemic, in fall 2020, have seen vast increases.

“The problem got worse for everybody in the same proportional way,” said Nat Malkus, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, who collected and studied the data.

Victoria, Texas reopened schools in August 2020, earlier than many other districts. Even so, student absenteeism in the district has doubled.

Kaylee Greenlee for The New York Times

The trends suggest that something fundamental has shifted in American childhood and the culture of school, in ways that may be long lasting. What was once a deeply ingrained habit — wake up, catch the bus, report to class — is now something far more tenuous.

“Our relationship with school became optional,” said Katie Rosanbalm, a psychologist and associate research professor with the Center for Child and Family Policy at Duke University.

The habit of daily attendance — and many families’ trust — was severed when schools shuttered in spring 2020. Even after schools reopened, things hardly snapped back to normal. Districts offered remote options, required Covid-19 quarantines and relaxed policies around attendance and grading .

Source: Nat Malkus, American Enterprise Institute . Includes districts with at least 1,500 students in 2019. Numbers are rounded. U.S. average is estimated.

Today, student absenteeism is a leading factor hindering the nation’s recovery from pandemic learning losses , educational experts say. Students can’t learn if they aren’t in school. And a rotating cast of absent classmates can negatively affect the achievement of even students who do show up, because teachers must slow down and adjust their approach to keep everyone on track.

“If we don’t address the absenteeism, then all is naught,” said Adam Clark, the superintendent of Mt. Diablo Unified, a socioeconomically and racially diverse district of 29,000 students in Northern California, where he said absenteeism has “exploded” to about 25 percent of students. That’s up from 12 percent before the pandemic.

U.S. students, overall, are not caught up from their pandemic losses. Absenteeism is one key reason.

Why Students Are Missing School

Schools everywhere are scrambling to improve attendance, but the new calculus among families is complex and multifaceted.

At South Anchorage High School in Anchorage, where students are largely white and middle-to-upper income, some families now go on ski trips during the school year, or take advantage of off-peak travel deals to vacation for two weeks in Hawaii, said Sara Miller, a counselor at the school.

For a smaller number of students at the school who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, the reasons are different, and more intractable. They often have to stay home to care for younger siblings, Ms. Miller said. On days they miss the bus, their parents are busy working or do not have a car to take them to school.

And because teachers are still expected to post class work online, often nothing more than a skeleton version of an assignment, families incorrectly think students are keeping up, Ms. Miller said.

Sara Miller, a counselor at South Anchorage High School for 20 years, now sees more absences from students across the socioeconomic spectrum.

Ash Adams for The New York Times

Across the country, students are staying home when sick , not only with Covid-19, but also with more routine colds and viruses.

And more students are struggling with their mental health, one reason for increased absenteeism in Mason, Ohio, an affluent suburb of Cincinnati, said Tracey Carson, a district spokeswoman. Because many parents can work remotely, their children can also stay home.

For Ashley Cooper, 31, of San Marcos, Texas, the pandemic fractured her trust in an education system that she said left her daughter to learn online, with little support, and then expected her to perform on grade level upon her return. Her daughter, who fell behind in math, has struggled with anxiety ever since, she said.

“There have been days where she’s been absolutely in tears — ‘Can’t do it. Mom, I don’t want to go,’” said Ms. Cooper, who has worked with the nonprofit Communities in Schools to improve her children’s school attendance. But she added, “as a mom, I feel like it’s OK to have a mental health day, to say, ‘I hear you and I listen. You are important.’”

Experts say missing school is both a symptom of pandemic-related challenges, and also a cause. Students who are behind academically may not want to attend, but being absent sets them further back. Anxious students may avoid school, but hiding out can fuel their anxiety.

And schools have also seen a rise in discipline problems since the pandemic, an issue intertwined with absenteeism.

Dr. Rosanbalm, the Duke psychologist, said both absenteeism and behavioral outbursts are examples of the human stress response, now playing out en masse in schools: fight (verbal or physical aggression) or flight (absenteeism).

“If kids are not here, they are not forming relationships,” said Quintin Shepherd, the superintendent in Victoria, Texas.

Quintin Shepherd, the superintendent in Victoria, Texas, first put his focus on student behavior, which he described as a “fire in the kitchen” after schools reopened in August 2020.

The district, which serves a mostly low-income and Hispanic student body of around 13,000, found success with a one-on-one coaching program that teaches coping strategies to the most disruptive students. In some cases, students went from having 20 classroom outbursts per year to fewer than five, Dr. Shepherd said.

But chronic absenteeism is yet to be conquered. About 30 percent of students are chronically absent this year, roughly double the rate before the pandemic.

Dr. Shepherd, who originally hoped student absenteeism would improve naturally with time, has begun to think that it is, in fact, at the root of many issues.

“If kids are not here, they are not forming relationships,” he said. “If they are not forming relationships, we should expect there will be behavior and discipline issues. If they are not here, they will not be academically learning and they will struggle. If they struggle with their coursework, you can expect violent behaviors.”

Teacher absences have also increased since the pandemic, and student absences mean less certainty about which friends and classmates will be there. That can lead to more absenteeism, said Michael A. Gottfried, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. His research has found that when 10 percent of a student’s classmates are absent on a given day, that student is more likely to be absent the following day.

Absent classmates can have a negative impact on the achievement and attendance of even the students who do show up.

Is This the New Normal?

In many ways, the challenge facing schools is one felt more broadly in American society: Have the cultural shifts from the pandemic become permanent?

In the work force, U.S. employees are still working from home at a rate that has remained largely unchanged since late 2022 . Companies have managed to “put the genie back in the bottle” to some extent by requiring a return to office a few days a week, said Nicholas Bloom, an economist at Stanford University who studies remote work. But hybrid office culture, he said, appears here to stay.

Some wonder whether it is time for schools to be more pragmatic.

Lakisha Young, the chief executive of the Oakland REACH, a parent advocacy group that works with low-income families in California, suggested a rigorous online option that students could use in emergencies, such as when a student misses the bus or has to care for a family member. “The goal should be, how do I ensure this kid is educated?” she said.

Relationships with adults at school and other classmates are crucial for attendance.

In the corporate world, companies have found some success appealing to a sense of social responsibility, where colleagues rely on each other to show up on the agreed-upon days.

A similar dynamic may be at play in schools, where experts say strong relationships are critical for attendance.

There is a sense of: “If I don’t show up, would people even miss the fact that I’m not there?” said Charlene M. Russell-Tucker, the commissioner of education in Connecticut.

In her state, a home visit program has yielded positive results , in part by working with families to address the specific reasons a student is missing school, but also by establishing a relationship with a caring adult. Other efforts — such as sending text messages or postcards to parents informing them of the number of accumulated absences — can also be effective.

Regina Murff has worked to re-establish the daily habit of school attendance for her sons, who are 6 and 12.

Sylvia Jarrus for The New York Times

In Ypsilanti, Mich., outside of Ann Arbor, a home visit helped Regina Murff, 44, feel less alone when she was struggling to get her children to school each morning.

After working at a nursing home during the pandemic, and later losing her sister to Covid-19, she said, there were days she found it difficult to get out of bed. Ms. Murff was also more willing to keep her children home when they were sick, for fear of accidentally spreading the virus.

But after a visit from her school district, and starting therapy herself, she has settled into a new routine. She helps her sons, 6 and 12, set out their outfits at night and she wakes up at 6 a.m. to ensure they get on the bus. If they are sick, she said, she knows to call the absence into school. “I’ve done a huge turnaround in my life,” she said.

But bringing about meaningful change for large numbers of students remains slow, difficult work .

Nationally, about 26 percent of students were considered chronically absent last school year, up from 15 percent before the pandemic.

The Ypsilanti school district has tried a bit of everything, said the superintendent, Alena Zachery-Ross. In addition to door knocks, officials are looking for ways to make school more appealing for the district’s 3,800 students, including more than 80 percent who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. They held themed dress-up days — ’70s day, pajama day — and gave away warm clothes after noticing a dip in attendance during winter months.

“We wondered, is it because you don’t have a coat, you don’t have boots?” said Dr. Zachery-Ross.

Still, absenteeism overall remains higher than it was before the pandemic. “We haven’t seen an answer,” she said.

Data provided by Nat Malkus, with the American Enterprise Institute. The data was originally published on the Return to Learn tracker and used for the report “ Long COVID for Public Schools: Chronic Absenteeism Before and After the Pandemic .”

The analysis for each year includes all districts with available data for that year, weighted by district size. Data are sourced from states, where available, and the U.S. Department of Education and NCES Common Core of Data.

For the 2018-19 school year, data was available for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. For 2022-23, it was available for 40 states and D.C., due to delays in state reporting.

Closure length status is based on the most in-person learning option available. Poverty is measured using the Census Bureau’s Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates. School size and minority population estimates are from NCES CCD.

How absenteeism is measured can vary state by state, which means comparisons across state lines may not be reliable.

An earlier version of this article misnamed a research center at Duke University. It is the Center for Child and Family Policy, not the Center of Child and Family Policy.

What challenges with the new FAFSA process mean for students and higher ed

The new FAFSA was supposed to make college financial aid easier to understand, easier to get. But the online system has been beset by problems, and now we could see delays in decisions, or worse: tens of thousands of fewer students going to college this fall.

So how can it get fixed in time to help students who need it the most?

Our guests discuss it:

• Amy Stein , executive director of the Rochester Education Foundation
• Janee Slade , director of college access programs at the Rochester Education Foundation
• Meaghan Drumm , assistant vice president of financial aid and scholarships at RIT
• Susan Romano , executive director of financial aid and enrollment management at SUNY Geneseo
• Jerome St. Croix , director of financial aid at MCC

Mustafa Suleyman, DeepMind and Inflection Co-founder, joins Microsoft to lead Copilot

Mar 19, 2024 | Microsoft Corporate Blogs

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Satya Nadella, Chief Executive Officer, shared the below communication today with Microsoft employees.

I want to share an exciting and important organizational update today. We are in Year 2 of the AI platform shift and must ensure we have the capability and capacity to boldly innovate.

There is no franchise value in our industry and the work and product innovation we drive at this moment will define the next decade and beyond. Let us use this opportunity to build world-class AI products, like Copilot, that are loved by end-users! This is about science, engineering, product, and design coming together and embracing a learning mindset to push our innovation culture and product building process forward in fundamental ways.

In that context, I’m very excited to announce that Mustafa Suleyman and Karén Simonyan are joining Microsoft to form a new organization called Microsoft AI, focused on advancing Copilot and our other consumer AI products and research.

Mustafa will be EVP and CEO, Microsoft AI, and joins the senior leadership team (SLT), reporting to me. Karén is joining this group as Chief Scientist, reporting to Mustafa. I’ve known Mustafa for several years and have greatly admired him as a founder of both DeepMind and Inflection, and as a visionary, product maker, and builder of pioneering teams that go after bold missions.

Karén, a Co-founder and Chief Scientist of Inflection, is a renowned AI researcher and thought leader, who has led the development of some of the biggest AI breakthroughs over the past decade including AlphaZero.

Several members of the Inflection team have chosen to join Mustafa and Karén at Microsoft. They include some of the most accomplished AI engineers, researchers, and builders in the world. They have designed, led, launched, and co-authored many of the most important contributions in advancing AI over the last five years. I am excited for them to contribute their knowledge, talent, and expertise to our consumer AI research and product making.

At our core, we have always been a platform and partner-led company, and we’ll continue to bring that sensibility to all we do. Our AI innovation continues to build on our most strategic and important partnership with OpenAI. We will continue to build AI infrastructure inclusive of custom systems and silicon work in support of OpenAI’s foundation model roadmap, and also innovate and build products on top of their foundation models. And today’s announcement further reinforces our partnership construct and principles.

As part of this transition, Mikhail Parakhin and his entire team, including Copilot, Bing, and Edge; and Misha Bilenko and the GenAI team will move to report to Mustafa. These teams are at the vanguard of innovation at Microsoft, bringing a new entrant energy and ethos, to a changing consumer product landscape driven by the AI platform shift. These organizational changes will help us double down on this innovation.

Kevin Scott continues as CTO and EVP of AI, responsible for all-up AI strategy, including all system architecture decisions, partnerships, and cross-company orchestration. Kevin was the first person I leaned on to help us manage our transformation to an AI-first company and I’ll continue to lean on him to ensure that our AI strategy and initiatives are coherent across the breadth of Microsoft.

Rajesh Jha continues as EVP of Experiences & Devices and I’m grateful for his leadership as he continues to build out Copilot for Microsoft 365, partnering closely with Mustafa and team.

There are no other changes to the senior leadership team or other organizations.

We have been operating with speed and intensity and this infusion of new talent will enable us to accelerate our pace yet again.

We have a real shot to build technology that was once thought impossible and that lives up to our mission to ensure the benefits of AI reach every person and organization on the planet, safely and responsibly. I’m looking forward to doing so with you.

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