COVID-19 and education: positioning the pandemic; facing the future

According to the UN (2020), almost 1.6 billion people, or circa one-fifth of the worlds population, across 190 countries and all continents, have been impacted in terms of disruption to education globally. To put the scale of this in some sort of perspective, this equates to largely the same number of people as populated the planet during the flu pandemic of 19181920. Then, as now, education has been impacted severely by enforced restrictions on society wrought by the onset of a global, indiscriminate pandemic. Since March 2020, when schools and campuses in Ireland first started to close, the effects of COVID-19 in education have been wide-ranging, from major changes and disruption to state examination systems to large-scale learning online and outside of school. Some of the key questions to arise for all educators in this precarious contemporary moment include: how has education been affected by the pandemic; and where can we go from here? Furthermore, there has been much discourse around the pandemic serving as a lever for change, potentially opening up new possibilities for learning, teaching and assessment, and alongside this the tentative vision of an improved education system post-pandemic. However, what might be learnt from the current situation, to inform the design of more engaging and inclusive educational futures for all? In October 2020, to locate and reflect upon the implications for education now emerging, as a consequence of the present pandemic, Irish Educational Studies invited articles for a special issue of papers exploring key aspects of the impact of COVID-19 on education in Ireland, situated in the global context. Furthermore, while there emerged in the immediate months after the pandemic a body of rapid research on COVID-19 and its implications for education, the aim of this special issue has been to take a longer view of the effects of the pandemic across key aspects of education in Ireland and internationally. Now in its 40th year, Irish Educational Studies has ab initio always been a generalist educational journal, covering education and its key, constituent concepts, perspectives and theoretical orientations, construed in a broad and inclusive way. As the inaugural editorial board of the journal wrote in 1981: `The policy of publishing articles from a wide range of educational studies psychology, sociology, history, philosophy, curriculum, evaluation, methodology and educational management is continued in Irish Educational Studies. Thus, faithful to the journals original and continuing mission, the call for papers for this special issue sought a wide and diverse set of research studies examining the impact of COVID-19 on Irish education and, or comparing developments in Ireland with the wider international situation. The different types of contributions invited, included, for example empirical papers, viewpoints, case studies, conceptual papers and literature reviews. The call for papers received an overwhelming response, and the Editors are pleased to publish this, our largest ever issue of Irish Educational Studies, comprehensively addressing a wide range of concerns, questions and topics in education in a time of global pandemic. Thus this special issue of the journal includes a comprehensive range of 32 articles focusing on diverse issues, questions and topics, across a salient set of themes, reported from Irish and international perspectives.