Covid-19 and higher education: The Times They Are A’Changin

ABSTRACT

The Covid-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the research and higher education sectors globally. The consequence of closure policies and other pandemic responses meant that primary, secondary, and tertiary education providers were forced to adapt their teaching and learning practices, many shifting to online platforms. Within the global Academy, Covid-19-related research was thrust into the public sphere while other research was deprioritised, delayed or cancelled. These various changes have implications for every corner of the teaching, learning and research triangle, and are one of the central foci of this special issue. With research and data from 16 countries and 5 continents, these articles explore the far-reaching impact of Covid-19 on higher education globally; accompanied also by a particular thread around lived experience, especially centring the voices of minoritised or marginalised members of the staff and student community. This is especially valuable given that understanding other countries’ successful strategies in handling the pandemic can forge global solidarity and collective growth. Together these stories, woven into 18 research articles, provide a rich and expansive landscape from which to promote equity and better understand the needs of the people the Academy serves.

KEYWORDS:

• Covid-19
• pandemic
• higher education
• global inequality
• digital inequality

Introduction

The Covid-19 pandemic mobilised global change to an unprecedented degree and at an unrivalled pace, leaving no area of society untouched or unimpacted. Health, education and other similar systems were called to adapt and upscale, often intensifying inequalities in the process (“Covid just amplified the cracks of the system”; Willis et al., 2021, p. 1). The pressure that befell these systems and the workforces that upheld them was significant, with frontline staff bearing the bulk of the weight (World Health Organisation [WHO], 2020). Worldwide there was shutdown of all but essential services, forcing them and their “non-essential” counterparts, both public and private, to change the way they functioned and delivered. This call for organisations to adapt or die left many operating in “survival mode”, all too aware of the precarity of life as they knew it. Health and economic policies such as testing and furlough schemes sprang up in multiple countries (e.g. Canto et al., 2021), aimed at assisting the economy and supplementing government containment measures such as closure policies and travel restrictions. Unfortunately, this was comparatively limited among less privileged countries, for whom the task of balancing the demand for health, safety and livelihood requirements was much more difficult (Buheji et al., 2020).

While countries varied in their response to Covid-19, one thing was constant: if policy was in the driving seat, research was co-driver. In their paper “When science goes viral”, Nowakowska and colleagues (2020) highlighted the capabilities of modern science to react rapidly to global health threats, propelling the research and higher education (HE) sectors to the forefront of public attention (Vilela, 2020). Now more than ever, scientists, universities and research institutions were leading from the front, and this was reflected in a global increase in Covid-19 targeted research funding, focus and output. To illustrate, in the first three months of the outbreak over 3400 manuscripts were published on Covid-19 (Nowakowska et al., 2020) and at the time of writing, the global literature on coronavirus disease contained well over half a million research articles (WHO, 2022). Clearly, the importance and value of research and higher education sectors has been recognised, as pandemic-responsive initiatives such as the Sustaining University Research Expertise fund (SURE; UK Government, 2020), have shown. That said, the widely differing government responses to Covid-19 suggest that whilst policy is perhaps more than ever being led by science, research is sought, interpreted and applied based on intersecting socio-political and other factors.

Additionally, a number of challenges have emerged as a result of the pandemic and its ensuing demand for research. The research landscape looks entirely different when looking through the lens of Covid-19, in contrast to non-Covid-19 perspectives. Firstly, whilst fiscal investment has aided a burgeoning evidence base for Covid-19, elsewhere clinical trials and other non-Covid-19 related research projects were being paused or cancelled (Sathian et al., 2020). In a study involving 1099 UK academic staff (Watermeyer et al., 2021), 75 per cent of respondents stated that the Covid-19 crisis had been detrimental to their research, citing it as a contributor to cancellation of research activity, research awards and even research posts. Then of course the pandemic has undermined the general ability of researchers to do their jobs, if not due to issues of funding and finance then due to ethical issues (recruitment of participants), logistics (e.g. decreased access to laboratory space, equipment or archives), or health and safety concerns (e.g. illness or virus transmission). For research that did make it to the final stages (i.e. publication and dissemination), some have described concerns about its quality and scientific rigour (e.g. Nowakowska et al., 2020; Weiner et al., 2020). Weiner and colleagues noted that due to the massive inflow and rush, some studies do not meet relevant standards or are published without peer review. They go on to highlight the ethical impact of potential misinformation on decisions affecting policy, legislation and society. Wider still, there are some who suggest that current global financial, education and health crises are not just a symptom of the coronavirus, but of a decade or more of budget cuts to research and funding (Dobson, 2020). For Dobson, the pandemic has served to highlight to legislation- and policy-makers “the societal role of a university” (2020, p. 2), and that current funding schemes are not fit for purpose. Whilst Dobson represents Australia, he echoes wider calls for UK government and other funding bodies to appropriately resource universities and research institutions going forward (e.g. Universities UK, 2021).

In what might be considered the final nail in the coffin, Watermeyer and colleagues summarised the survey responses from the 1099 UK academics in their study as a “eulogy to [non-Covid-19 related] research” (2021, p. 15). Sixty-four per cent of respondents reported a reprioritisation of teaching over research, which given that almost two-thirds worked in research-intensive universities was especially salient. Universities also seemed to be uncoupling research from teaching, with increasing numbers of teaching-only jobs. This speaks to what Trowler and Wareham (2007) termed “dysfunctions” emerging between the two core missions of a university – research and teaching – which Hordósy and McLean later outline in this special issue as having been further exposed by the pandemic. One key reason for their uncoupling is due to universities having to resource and facilitate mass online migration (Watermeyer et al., 2021), relying on education technology (EdTech) and virtual learning environments (VLEs) to deliver learning materials and conduct assessments. This itself required a level of digital competence not possessed by all (see Basilotta-Gómez-Pablos et al., 2022), which whether gained through training or self-study would have likely added to an intensification of workload during the pandemic (Watermeyer et al., 2021). This alongside the pervasive trend of labour casualisation and precarity may have explained why 67 per cent of academic staff in their study, many of those early in their career, described experiences of exploitation, work-related stress, work-based inequality, and digital fatigue. Watermeyer and colleagues implicate the role of “disaster capitalism”¹ (2021, p. 4), noting that the pandemic has represented economic opportunity for cost-effectiveness (e.g. culling contracts, labour casualisation) and private-sector intervention with for-profit educational entities (e.g. the EdTech industry). There are calls to counteract these so as to promote transformative action for educational equity (Miller & Liu, 2021), and given labour casualisation and other exploitative practices have been shown to disproportionately impact female staff and staff of colour (see Arday, 2022), centring the lived experience of academic staff from marginalised communities is of particular importance here.

As well as the potential quality of research and ways in which researchers could do their jobs, the Covid-19 pandemic also undermined the ability of universities to provide high-quality and safe educational experiences for students (Vilela, 2020). Challenges included enforced closures of higher education institutions (Watermeyer et al., 2020), campus safety, university admissions processes and online learning arrangements (Vilela, 2020). The latter has perhaps been the most significant part of what Watermeyer described as a “forced culture change” in higher education (2021), with mass reliance on EdTech and VLEs to deliver content and facilitate online discussion with students. For example, following the UK government-enforced lockdown in March 2020, web traffic to the Open University (OE)’s OpenLearn increased fivefold (UK Parliament, 2021). Meanwhile, VLEs such as Blackboard, Moodle and Panopto became the platform-of-choice for UK universities and their students as they navigated the pandemic.

Within international literature, Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT: Hodges et al., 2020) was utilised across multiple countries and continents as a means of replacing traditional face-to-face approaches. There was consensus within both national and international research that student responses to online learning were mixed. A report from Universities UK (2022) suggested that almost two-thirds (66 per cent) of students wanted a blend of in-person and online teaching, and also highlighted a “silver lining” to the pandemic in that the move to digital teaching and learning coincided with a narrowing of attainment gaps between females and males, students with and without disabilities and White and Black students. In Pakistan, one study showed that online learning modalities were considered flexible and effective (Mukhtar et al., 2020), although the same study cited them as more resource-intensive. They also highlighted difficulties with managing group dynamics online, making recommendations for maintaining decorum through supervision, setting ground rules and disciplinary action. In Russia, a review of students’ attitudes about distance learning during Covid-19 also showed that experiences and degrees of satisfaction varied, with students considering distance education as flexible in terms of time and place, but contributing to physical and psychological health concerns, including fear, anxiety, stress and attention problems (Masalimova et al., 2022). A UK study also mentioned a 39 per cent increase in students reporting reduced concentration levels (Bashir et al., 2021), although this may have been more about lockdown restrictions than the shift to online learning. The same study reported positive experiences of online assessments and accessibility of online platforms. Student satisfaction levels in a Chinese university appeared to be mediated by effective design and delivery of learning activities (e.g. Bao, 2020), as described later in this special issue by Lee and colleagues. Importantly, one study found that online communication self-efficacy is a significant predictor of perceived net benefits of online learning (Punjani & Mahadevan, 2022), suggesting the benefits of improving students’ online communication skills when accessing virtual platforms. The need for students to be engaged in suitable instructional designs that enhance their learning experiences was emphasised, mirroring findings highlighted by Bao (2020).

There are, of course, myriad other ways in which such changes impacted on student experiences. Notwithstanding their educational and learning experiences, there are also important implications for students’ mental and physical health outcomes – which of course, impact their educational and learning experiences in turn. For example, Bashir and colleagues (2021) found that 93 per cent of students reported an increased use of social media during the pandemic, which they linked to potential impacts on mental health, lack of sleep and stress. They also noted “dysmorphic concern” (2021, p. 9), which manifested in behaviours such as not wanting to turn their video cameras on, fixating on their own face during the lecture or call, adjusting their camera position, and undertaking grooming activities prior. A US study found that college students experienced anxiety, feelings of loneliness and depression (Lee et al., 2021), and another UK study found that 50 per cent of a sample of 1173 university students experienced levels of anxiety or depression above the clinical cut-offs (Chen & Lucock, 2022).

It is impossible to speak about education and health outcomes without also speaking about inequalities. In 2020, the Health Foundation posed the question: “will Covid-19 be a watershed moment for health inequalities?” (Bibby et al., 2020). Though it was a rhetorical question, much of the research that has emerged since has strengthened the answer. The seminal reviews from Baroness Lawrence (2020) and Marmot and colleagues (2020) speak to how Covid-19 has amplified inequalities among people of colour and other marginalised groups across the intersection. When combining the Covid-19 outbreak with experiences of racism, particularly in the wake of the George Floyd murder², for Black communities, the past few years have been a “pandemic within a pandemic” (Laurencin & Walker, 2020). There has been no exception among Black academic staff and student populations, particularly Black women, which Pennant discusses further later in this special issue. Reflective of problematic findings across the intersection, the study from Chen and Lucock (2022) found that young female students scored significantly higher than males for depression and anxiety, while a study of college students from India found that anxiety and depression were prevalent, with women more affected (Verma, 2020). Lee and colleagues (2021) highlighted that the mental health of the US lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer or questioning (LGBTQ+) student community was exacerbated throughout the pandemic due to health disparities and social disadvantages.

Unsurprisingly, there were also issues relating to inequality when considering specific online learning contexts, in particular around digital inequity. While EdTech holds promise to transform education and enhance equity (Miller & Liu, 2021), it must be understood as a social and political fact and not one that exists outside the racist, white supremacist society we live in (Kohli et al., 2017; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995). Research has shown that home learning conditions reflect socioeconomic conditions (e.g. Liu & Steiner-Khamsi, 2020), which means access to online learning for students is mediated by critical socioeconomic and intersectional factors. As well as digital divides within societies, such as unequal access to computers and associated equipment between households (e.g. “pay the wi-fi or feed the children”, Holmes & Burgess, 2021), there is a substantial global disparity in internet coverage and bandwidth (Liu, 2021). According to the International Telecommunication Union [ITU] (2020), only 14.9 per cent of low-income countries were connected by broadband and less than 10 per cent had access to a computer at home. As Miller and Liu highlight, technology tools should be subject to critical analysis in the social and political context of power and oppression (2021), which the global Academy needs to account for when constructing the vision of a post-pandemic university. This also applies to the more detailed aspects of distance learning, which should account for the backgrounds and individual needs of students. For example, in one UK study, students shifting to an online platform and who were given a 12 hour assessment window, expressed preferences for a 24 hour window to complete their assignments to address issues around caring responsibilities, internet access, and religious observances such as Ramadan (Bashir et al., 2021).

The various changes presented by the global pandemic have implications for every corner of the teaching, learning and research triangle and constitute one of the central foci of this special issue. At the start of the pandemic, many of the publications emerging from the research community were speculative, positing questions or theories as to what will, could and might happen. Two years on, there is a rise in papers commenting on what has happened and is happening. This special issue reflects an increasing shift towards this understanding and one where we begin to integrate what we know about impact and experience to shape a post-pandemic future. With research and data from 16 countries and 5 continents, it explores the far-reaching impact of Covid-19 on higher education globally; accompanied also by a particular thread around lived experience, especially centring the voices of minoritised or marginalised members of the staff and student community. This is especially valuable given that understanding other countries’ successful strategies in handling the pandemic can both strengthen decolonial thought and forge global solidarity and collective growth (Meghji & Niang, 2022). Together, these stories, woven into 18 research articles, provide a rich and expansive landscape from which to promote equity and better understand the needs of the people the Academy serves.

It feels pertinent to note that this special issue has been shaped by Covid-19 in practice as well as in its research orientation. Similarly to many of our academic colleagues, more of its content was written inside the authors’ homes than within university walls, and discussion had taken place online rather than face-to-face. Undoubtedly for some of us, this work will have been produced whilst also navigating sickness, childcare problems, care-giving for relatives or neighbours, social isolation, mental health difficulties and many other challenges that have been amplified by the pandemic. These challenges will of course also have been influenced by our various intersectional, geographical, and social locations. While not exclusively autoethnographic, this special issue is nevertheless one that reflects the experiences of many – and thus connects authors, participants, and readers alike.

Articles

The opening contribution to this special issue speaks to the adaptations that have emerged from Covid-19. In their paper entitled “The future of the research and teaching nexus in a post-pandemic world”, Rita Hordósy and Monica McLean explore the organisational challenges experienced within English higher education institutions and the implications for teaching and research. They employ documentary and secondary data analysis to highlight longstanding discrepancies between research opportunities and research-led teaching, including equity issues that have been magnified by the pandemic response. The paper presents a convincing vision for the post-pandemic research-teaching nexus, one that can advance local and global aspirations such as climate preservation, peace transformation and social equity.

Next is to focus on what Covid-19 has meant to and for non-traditional students, such as first-generation, working class or mature students. Rille Raaper, Chris Brown and Anna Llewellyn work to centre these experiences in their paper titled “Student support as social network: exploring non-traditional student experiences of academic and wellbeing support during the Covid-19 pandemic.” Interviewing ten such students from an elite UK university and utilising thematic analysis to explore the nature of their student support, the authors propose an original approach to student support that has important implications for institutions. Perhaps as notable, the article adeptly challenges the dominant deficit views that can accompany non-traditional students, cementing it as a welcome and much-needed contribution to the field.

Also, centring student experiences are Ross Goldstone and Jingwen Zhang, who do so in the context of postgraduate research (PGR). Their paper, titled “Postgraduate research students’ experiences of the Covid-19 pandemic and student-led policy solutions”, investigated the impact of the coronavirus on mental wellbeing, social life and study experience across the UK higher education sector. Utilising multilevel modelling and qualitative analysis, their work represented the voices of their research in making student-led policy suggestions at both the national and institutional level. With a large sample size and over 4000 pieces of data, this all-important contribution promotes that the lived experiences of PGR students are reflected both in research and, as is the hope of both the authors and editors, relevant policies that may follow.

Moving from the UK context to that of Australia, the next study considers the impact of adaptive teaching and learning practices on culturally and linguistically diverse migrant and refugee (CALDMR) students. Together, Sally Baker, Joel Anderson, Rachel Burke, Teresa De Fazio, Clemence Due, Lisa Hartley, Tebeje Molla, Carolina Morison, William Mude, Loshini Naidoo and Ravinder Sidhu submit a treatise for engaged pedagogy (hooks, 1994). Their paper, titled: “Equitable teaching for cultural and linguistic diversity: exploring the possibilities for engaged pedagogy in post-Covid-19 higher education,” highlights the opportunities for post-pandemic transformation in Australia, offering a re-imagining of the status quo within higher education going forward.

Meanwhile in South Korea, the paper from Kyungmee Lee, Mik Fanguy, Brett Bligh and Xuefei Sophie Lu, entitled “Adoption of online teaching during the Covid-19 pandemic: a systematic analysis of changes in university teaching activity,” depicts a teaching landscape similar to that of earlier papers in this special issue. The shift in institutional teaching activities and conditions created a range of contradictions that were experienced as dilemmas by academics, which seem to mirror the longstanding discrepancies and challenges highlighted within English higher education institutions by Rita Hordósy and Monica McLean. Findings from a national university in South Korea thus provide an essential lesson for higher education institutions navigating post-pandemic academia, with the authors recommending a more sensitive, realistic and holistic response to future emergency teaching scenarios.

In Central-Eastern Europe (CEE) digital adaptations were already in development prior to the pandemic, and thus the emergency response was more one of activation than an unexpected shift. Beatrix Füzi, Zsuzsanna Géring and Eszter Szendrei-Pál outline this in their paper: “Changing expectations related to digitalisation and socialisation in higher education. Horizon scanning of pre- and post-Covid-19 discourses.” They recognise that the pandemic has, for many students, denied them the breadth and depth of opportunities for socialisation and that there is an increasing need for socialisation as a result. Compellingly, they report on the dynamic interconnection between socialisation and digitalisation and offer important considerations for the post-Covid-19 era.

Silvia K. Bartolic, David Boud, Jenilyn Agapito, Dominique Verpoorten, Siobhan Williams, Louise Lutze-Mann, Uwe Matzat, Ma Monica Moreno, Patsie Polly, Joanna Tai, Heidi L. Marsh, Lin Lin, Jamie-Lee Burgess, Senay Habtu, Ma Maria Mercedes Rodrigo, Mary Roth, Tania Heap and Neil Guppy make an excellent contribution to the field. In their “Multi-institutional assessment of changes in higher education teaching and learning in the face of Covid-19”, they quantitatively analysed data from over 300 courses across eight colleges and universities, across six countries and four continents. Their findings were as cautionary as they were clear. Clear in their findings, but cautionary in their recommendations. Importantly, they highlight that much of the problem-solving in the height of the pandemic was adrenaline-fuelled and conducted while in a state of flux – a conclusion that would probably not be out of place in a range of other contexts.

Next in this special issue is a contribution from April-Louise Pennant, who centres Black girls' and women’s experiences of Covid-19. Contextualised amongst experiences of racism, particularly in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, this article is aptly named: “Who’s checkin’ for Black girls and women in the ‘pandemic within a pandemic’? Covid-19, Black Lives Matter and educational implications”. In this UK research, framed by critical race theory (CRT) and Bourdieu’s theory of practice (BTP) within the context of Black feminist epistemology (BFE), Pennant highlights the unfair “burden of care” that Black women and girls bear both for themselves and others. She concludes with a call for all to check on Black girls and women, who have for far too long silently suffered, navigated and overcome.

Speaking to the digital inequity outlined earlier (Miller & Liu, 2021), the article from Laura Loyola-Hernández, Christine Kahigi, Peninah Wangari-Jones and Abraham Mena Farrera reveals the challenges in higher education institutions providing adequate IT equipment, training and resource during the initial months of lockdown. Their paper, entitled “Resilience, advocacy and scholar-activism: responding to Covid-19 in Kenyan, Mexican and British universities”, examines universities’ support for staff and students during this time, considering scholar-activist responses as well as teaching and learning conditions. Mirroring previous research, they discuss how stress and mental health difficulties are compounded when coupled with isolation, loss and caring responsibilities (Bashir et al., 2021). They highlight a gap in resources and government support, which while communities and campaign organisations have stepped up to close, leaves many issues to be considered at the systems level, such as workload, caring responsibilities, support for staff with disabilities or chronic issues, and equality issues around gender and race.

Similarly to Pennant’s paper on the “pandemic within a pandemic”, Habiba Braimah, Jennifer LaFleur, Zora Haque and Derron Wallace discuss how the convergence of two racialised phenomena, a public health crisis and police violence, intensified public scrutiny of the practices that sustain racial inequalities, including in higher education. Their paper, “Can we just talk? Exploring discourses on race and racism among U.S. undergraduates during the COVID-19 pandemic”, highlights the complexities of the US Academy and argues that their higher education institutions are complicit in the perpetuation of fallacies surrounding race and racism. This important paper utilises survey data from two elite, predominantly white institutions to examine how specific pedagogical approaches can develop students’ capacity to understand, discuss and address racism.

Speaking to “disaster capitalism” (Klein, 2014) and the need to counter this when promoting educational equity (Miller & Liu, 2021), Lili Yang, Thomas Brotherhood and Maia Chankseliani bring their paper “A crisis of opportunity at English universities: rethinking higher education through the common good idea.” They present the other side of the economic opportunities for privatisation, profit and cost-effectiveness, instead looking to the “common-good” opportunities that English universities have had around widening participation, promoting social cohesion and democracy, promulgating a global knowledge system, promoting a sense of community embeddedness and designing common-good oriented financial models for higher education. Critically, the article discusses the potential shift towards the common good as a guiding principle for universities in order to support sustainable and equitable development.

Shifting from universities and higher education institutions to a school context, the next paper offers an important contribution towards the international “Building Back Better” literature. Jo Fletcher, Britta Klopsch, John Everatt and Anne Sliwka’s paper entitled “Preparing student teachers post-pandemic: lessons learnt from principals and teachers in New Zealand and Germany” presents some of the strategies used across the two countries, both of which had relative success in curbing the spread of the Covid-19 virus. Through their findings the authors put forward a convincing argument for teacher-education courses to be reformed, such as calling for improvements to teacher-teacher and teacher-parent collaborations; better preparation for the use of blended teaching methods; and the need to recognise potential challenges faced by individual children from differing backgrounds, including ways in which to provide and access support. While reflecting the wider evidence base around higher education, particularly around online learning, this article shines an important light on the needs of the primary, secondary and further education sector.

Retaining a focus on Australasia, the next article considers tertiary education among regional, rural and remote (RRR) Australian communities. In their paper, “Should I stay or should I go? The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on regional, rural and remote undergraduate students at an Australian university”, Julia Cook, Penny Jane Burke, Matthew Bunn and Hernan Cuervo draw on intersectional theory and in-depth interview data to understand the experiences, challenges faced by, and related choice-making processes of students during the height of the pandemic period. The resultant article offers new insights for widening participation in rural areas, with careful consideration of participants’ classed, gendered and locational identities. They illuminate the challenges faced by RRR students in being able to quickly marshal financial, emotional, and practical support when crises occur, highlighting considerations which can be applied post-pandemic and beyond.

Meanwhile in Spain, Ursula Faura-Martínez, Matilde Lafuente-Lechuga and Javier Cifuentes-Faura examine the “Sustainability of the Spanish university system during the pandemic caused by Covid-19.” As has been examined elsewhere in this special issue, their focus is on the response to closure policies and the shift to virtual teaching and learning. In this large scale study involving 3000 Spanish university students, the authors contribute to an increasing international evidence base around the digital divide. The results highlight that students were not prepared for this change, found it difficult to follow the course online, spent more hours per day studying, and achieved lower academic performance. The authors campaign for a more inclusive, equitable and quality education system that promotes sustainable activities and reduces the digital divide.

Following a similar thread, Guopeng Fu and Anthony Clarke explore online teacher-education courses across Canadian and Chinese contexts. In their paper, “The development and impact of teachers’ collective agency during Covid-19: insights from online classrooms in Canada and China”, they employ a digital ethnographic approach amongst secondary, further and higher education institutions. They discuss the all-important structural changes caused by the pandemic and the impact it has had on teacher agency, noting that the asynchronous course structure had different effects on Canadian student teachers as compared to the Chinese group. They highlight the role of emotions, an integral but often overlooked part of teacher and collective agency.

Exploring themes of prison education, Kate O’Brien, Hannah King, Josie Phillips, Dalton, Kath and Phoenix consider the importance for the state to provide access to “education for all”. In their paper, “‘Education as the practice of freedom?’ – prison education and the pandemic”, they utilise the vehicle of the influential Inside-Out Prison Exchange Programme in an attempt to recognise the value and importance of prison education. This article holds particular authority with regards to its subject matter, given that Dalton, Kath and Phoenix themselves have lived experience of incarceration. Emphasising the need for the transformative and humanising potential of HE in prison, this collective illuminate some of the challenges regarding education in prison during the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent impact on the educational experiences and journeys of people in custody. Moreover, the paper affirms the belief that education must remain a “practice of freedom” for those incarcerated during and beyond the pandemic. Concluding commentaries provide a stimulus for re-imagining HE in UK prisons through alternative modes of engagement and pedagogy regarding prison education.

Rebecca Ye adopts a decolonising and transnational lens in her paper, “Testing elite transnational education and contesting orders of worth in the face of a pandemic.” Presenting the Covid-19 pandemic as a test that disrupted the flow of a particular type of social and physical mobility, the article takes pathways embarked upon by students from Asian countries to “prestigious” anglophone universities as its focal point of analysis. Examining how elite universities in the US and UK responded to international students under conditions of uncertainty, the author outlines how clashes between market, civic and domestic regimes exert significant pressures on organisational efforts to coordinate and cope during the pandemic. Pointing to contesting orders of worth between states and institutions, Ye challenges the prevailing logic of elite transnational education and how this has been altered in the face of Covid-19.

Concluding this special issue, the final paper from Sue Cronin invites readers to consider a post-pandemic tertiary education system that is responsive to uncertainty and change. As others in this special issue have done, Cronin contributes to the Build Back Better literature through the exploration of UK-based distance and online learning pedagogies. This time, the experiences of those bearing much of the labour around the shift to virtual teaching are centred; specifically, university teacher-educators. Although the findings point to an agile, resilient and creative group in the short term, as we continue to move towards blended learning programmes Cronin highlights the longer-term challenges and pressures. The article draws from the positive lessons and benefits of a new technological understanding while calling for additional skills- and resource-building to enable teacher-educators to meet the needs of an uncertain future and “next normal”.

Conclusion

As noted by Berry and Cook, “telling stories of one’s experiences can provide important lessons for the future” (2019, p. 89), which is essential to re-imagining the post-pandemic university. That said, the cautionary sentiments from Bartolic and colleagues' article within this special issue – not to put too much stock into lessons learned from a period of chaos and “adrenaline-fuelled frenzy” – have their place. The challenge for meaningful recovery and Building Back Better is to draw from the best of then, and the best of now, and to leave behind the worst of them both. This requires discernment, which of course is aided by an international understanding of the impact of the pandemic response, as is the aim of this special issue. It is now for those with the power to effect change to further uplift the voices in this series by integrating these lessons and recommendations within current practices within the global Academy.

It should be noted that while this special issue represents the voice of many across the globe, equally there are many countries and groups whose experiences are not present. While the research on Covid-19 is burgeoning, much of the early Covid-19 research activity emerged from China, the US, UK and wider Europe (Nowakowska et al., 2020). There still remains a Western bias, which likely plays a reinforcing role in the continuation of colonial thought, white supremacy and other mechanisms of structural inequality. It is important that, as well as centring the stories and research included in this series, we call attention to those not yet heard. Future special issues should consider ways in which to ensure these groups are invited to contribute and given a seat at the proverbial table.

Acknowledgements

I would like to extend my gratitude and appreciation to all the amazing authors that contributed to this special issue. I would like to extend a special thanks to Dr Gemma Banks and Professor Jane Martin who have been an exceptional source of strength and support throughout this process.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 A form of extreme capitalism that advocates privatisation and deregulation in the wake of war or natural catastrophe; specifically in the response to disasters and the reconstruction afterwards (Klein, 2014).

2 In May 2020, George Floyd, an unarmed African American man, was murdered by police officer Derek Chauvin, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during an arrest where he knelt on a handcuffed Floyd’s neck for over nine minutes. After his murder, there were global protests against police brutality, particularly towards Black people.