The aim of this report is threefold. Its first section provides an overall sketch of the situation across Europe and the underlying mechanisms for the differences in European countries. The second section focuses on the heterogeneities within each country. It examines the disparities among students in order to understand which of those correlate…

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered the biggest disruption to EU countries' societies and economies, including their education systems, since World War II. Responding to the crisis has forced national governments to increase their spending to keep the economy and public services afloat. This situation has brought about significant opportunities as…

The overall aim of the study was to gather evidence on effective policy reforms for broad competence development in school education, including better achievement of basic skills. The six key objectives are: Objective 1: To understand the key features of policy design and implementation of reforms for broad competence development and achievement…

This checklist outlines key features for managing authorities and intermediate bodies of the European Social Fund Plus (ESF+) to consider when they want to stimulate innovation and promote digitalisation in employment, education, and training. The checklist was developed as part of the work of the ESF Transnational Cooperation Platform…

This report presents results from a Danish qualitative interview-based study with teachers, students parents, school leaders and representatives from interest groups (n=22). The focus is on the academic year 2020-21 in Danish compulsory education, which can be described as the first full year with COVID-19. The study reveals how practices from the…

This report presents results from a qualitative interview-based study with teachers, students and school leaders (n=15) on the academic year 2020-21 in Estonia, which can be described as the first full year with COVID-19. The study reveals how school staff members were bridging previous experiences from 2019-20 in preparations for 2020-21…

This report describes the experiences of Hungarian public education in the 2020/21 academic year, during the COVID-19 epidemic. We focus primarily on describing the teaching practices, the teaching methods used that arose during the school closures period. In secondary schools, this meant two-thirds of the school year, while in primary schools it…

This report presents the educational response to COVID-19 crisis in Romania during the 2020-2021 school year, a summary in Romanian is found in the annex. Through a qualitative methodology, the project aimed to understand how different educational systems adapted to the pandemic situation in the 2020-2021 school year and to map some good practices…

This technical report describes the educational response to COVID-19 in Spain during the 2020-2021 academic year. The study focused on compulsory education and it was designed as a qualitative research with a sample of 34 participants, including school leaders, teachers, families and students from different types of schools and regions in Spain.…

This report explores the different ways in which European Union (EU) Member States (MS) have attempted to ensure high-quality ECEC (Early Childhood Education and Care) for children and families in the era of COVID-19. The rationale for the report builds on the Conclusions of the European Council concerning the fight against COVID-19 in education…

This ESIR Focus Paper provides a 'deeper dive' into the role of European Universities in achieving systemic change in the post-pandemic economy and society. It builds on and complements ESIR's second Policy Brief, which offers guidance on how a 'protect-prepare-transform' approach in the post-pandemic Europe can ensure fast learning from…

China is leading in the application of new digital technologies in education. The market is young, albeit highly competitive, as parents willingly adopt any technological innovation that could help their children, and schools as well, since they are judged on their pupils' success. To foster such a flourishing, there is a wealth of available data…

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in temporary physical closures of schools and higher education institutions around the world. In higher education, approximately 220 million students globally have been affected due to the disruption caused by COVID-19, leaving policymakers and educational institutions with unprecedented challenges such as how to…

This report focuses on the social and economic resilience that might be achieved by well-designed and well-targeted investment in education. It provides a review of the individual and social returns of education in terms of both economic and non-economic effects. The most important economic benefits for individuals include better skills, better…

The unprecedented shift to remote schooling introduced in many countries in the spring of 2020 as one of the preventive measures to stop the spread of COVID-19 gave us the opportunity not only to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of remote schooling, but also to reflect on how education is being provided in general. We interviewed in total…