Pandemic Impact on Sustainable Education

Malika A. Dovletmurzaeva

, Tamilla L. Magomadova

and Madina A. Barzaeva

Chechen State University, st. A. Sheripova, 32, Grozny, Russia

Grozny State Oil Technical University named after Academician M.D. Millionshchikov, Kh. Isaeva ave. 100, Grozny,

Russia

Keywords: Sustainable Development, Education, Pandemic, Sustainable Education.

Abstract: Sustainable development cannot be achieved solely through technology, political regulation, or financial

mechanisms. Humanity needs to change its way of thinking and behavior. This, in turn, requires the provision

of quality education and training for sustainable development at all levels and regardless of social conditions.

In turn, the COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically changed the situation in the field of education in all

countries of the world. The paper considers the consequences of the pandemic impact that hinder the

sustainable education development. In conclusion, Governments are invited to take additional organizational

and financial measures in 2021 to mitigate the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the ammount

of costs associated with achieving SDG 4, as well as to restore the knowledge lost by students during the

closure period.

1 INTRODUCTION

The education is one of the priorities of the state's

investment policy, which is reflected in national

projects. While there is still room to increase the

overall spending on education, the main challenge at

the moment is to improve the effectiveness,

efficiency and equity of public expenditure. In order

to ensure that the diversity of Russian conditions is

taken into account, the objectives of national projects

should be carefully considered and easily assessed

and identified at the regional and local levels. The

implementation of projects in the regions often

requires active support from the federal government,

and not only financial support; this is especially true

for regions with insufficient administrative capacity.

Education in interests for Sustainable

Development (ESD) is designed to help us find

constructive and creative solutions to present and

future global challenges and to increase the resilience

and vitality of societies.

UNESCO is internationally recognized as a

leading institution in the field of ESD. It coordinates

the implementation of the Global Action Programme



https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7531-8190

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0146-8989

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9581-7763

on ESD, which is the official follow-up to the UN

Decade of Education in interests for Sustainable

Development (2005-2014).

In order for people to learn to lead responsible

lives and solve complex problems of global

importance, education should encourage the

development of critical thinking and qualities that

allow you to predict the course of events in the future

and make joint decisions. This requires new

approaches to learning, the development of dynamic

and eco-friendly societies and economies, and the

education of global citizenship (Education for

Sustainable Development, 2020).

2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The paper contains the results on the pandemic

impact on education, identified in the framework of

published reports and analytical materials of

international organizations, specialized analytical

publications, data from foreign and Russian news

agencies, as well as interviews and articles by leading

analysts and experts. The methods of the performed

Dovletmurzaeva, M., Magomadova, T. and Barzaeva, M.

Pandemic Impact on Sustainable Education.

DOI: 10.5220/0010595906850689

In Proceedings of the International Scientiﬁc and Practical Conference on Sustainable Development of Regional Infrastructure (ISSDRI 2021), pages 685-689

ISBN: 978-989-758-519-7

685

research contain theoretical and empirical parts,

description methods. This research is supported by

graphical methods of illustrating the data.

3 RESULTS OF RESEARCH

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically changed

the situation in the field of education in all countries

of the world. As in most areas of life, activity in

education was frozen for a while.

The digital revolution deployment on a global

scale is increasingly immersing us in a new reality

(Dynkin and Telegina, 2020). The variety of technical

and technological innovations that change our lives

has increased many times over the past decade, and in

a wide variety of human activity areas (Fituni and

Abramova, 2020).

But today, despite the potential risks, there is a

growing understanding that education is one of the

areas that needs to be resumed as soon as possible. At

the same time, significant financial and organizational

costs are required to ensure the safe and effective

functioning of educational organizations.

The reports note that many countries, especially

those with low-and lower-middle-income levels, are

severely short of financial resources to achieve

Sustainable Development Goal 4 ("Quality

education").

Figure 1: Shortfall for achieving SDG 4 before COVID-19

(in million dollars USA).

*The amount of missing funds as a percentage of the total

cost.

According to the IMF forecasts, the level of

funding for education in the world, equal to the level

of funding for education in 2018, will not be reached

earlier than in six years. In 2020, the EFA World

Monitoring Report working group updated the data

used in the cost model and checked whether the

assumptions made in 2015 were accurate. For some 2

exceptions, the most important parameters, such as

teacher salary multipliers as a percentage of GDP per

person, remained unchanged and did not affect the

results of the assessment. At the same time, the

analytical calculations showed to the participants of

the 2019 High-level Political Forum showed that the

pace of implementation of the SDG 4 targets was

lower than planned. For example, the actual

percentage of students completing a secondary school

course has increased only slightly – from 18% in 2015

to 20% in 2020, when it was planned to reach 46% by

that time (UNESCO, 2019).

In the period 2015-2020, even before the outbreak

of the pandemic, the combined need of low-income

and lower-middle-income countries to finance the

activities related to the achievement of SDG 4 by

2030 remained unchanged at slightly more than $ 5

trillion. At the same time, however, taking into

account the reduction in the time frame allocated for

the implementation of the specified tasks, the annual

funding requirement increased from $ 340 to $ 504

billion.

Figure 2: Early intervention, partially offsetting the

increased costs resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic

(US $ billion). Funding Requirements.

In general, regardless of the specific scenario in

relation to the duration of school closures and GDP

dynamics, the COVID-19 pandemic is estimated to

lead to an increase of $ 5-35 billion to the initial level

of annual funding requirements of $ 504 billion.

However, the adoption of strategic measures could

reduce this increase by $ 5-25 billion (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Taking action at an early stages, artially offsetting

the increased costs resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic

(US $ billion). Funding Deficit.

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686

In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic is estimated

to increase the annual funding deficit by $ 30-45

billion, with a baseline of $ 148 billion. In this case,

the adoption of strategic measures could also reduce

this increase by $ 5-25 billion. The deepening of the

funding deficit is due not only to an increase in the

need for additional funding (which, in turn, depends

on the development of the epidemiological situation,

economic trends and policy decisions), but also on the

indicators of public spending on education (that, in

the current cost calculation model, are linked to

assumptions about economic growth, tax rates and the

level of priority of education).

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an additional

increase in the costs of implementing SDG 4. This is

also due to the fact that hundreds of millions of

students have not been able to use distance learning

technologies.

According to a joint study by UNESCO, UNICEF

and the World Bank, at least 463 million (or 31%)

students in low-income and lower-middle-income

countries were not enrolled in distance learning. In

this regard, measures will be required to restore

partially lost knowledge and skills. An increase in the

duration of the educational institutions closure leads

to an additional increase in the funding gap for SDG

In addition, there is a high probability that

families experiencing serious financial difficulties

may decide to stop their children's schooling. The

World Bank estimates that 6.8 million primary and

secondary school students are likely to end their

studies early. According to UNESCO, about 11

million children may not return to school.

During the COVID-19 crisis, approximately 40

per cent of the poorest countries were unable to

support at-risk students (IIEP-UNESCO, 2020), and

past experience shows that both educational

inequalities and gender inequalities tend to be ignored

when responding to disease outbreaks (United

Nations, 2020). Due to household chores and the need

to run a household or participate in agricultural work,

children, and especially girls, may not have enough

time to study. The problems of disabled children, who

were still marginalized before the outbreak, are not

always taken into account in the development of

distance learning strategies (European Commission,

2020).

Refugee and forcibly displaced children are even

more vulnerable and are denied access to support

services offered in schools, such as school nutrition

and psychosocial support programs.

Students who lack sufficient digital skills and are

least likely to have access to the hardware and

communications needed for distance learning during

school closures are the most disadvantaged. Of the 21

European countries surveyed, in half of the countries,

fourth-grade students from lower socio-economic

backgrounds were half as likely to access the Internet

as their more privileged peers (UNESCO, GEM

Report, 2020). In 7 low-income countries, less than

10 percent of the poorest households have electricity.

These include the Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Kiribati,

Ivory Coast, Lesotho, Mauritania and Sudan.

Many students in developing countries, especially

primary and minority students, have poor command

of the teaching language (UNICEF, 2020). Even if

they were provided with materials that they could

understand, due to aspects such as home conditions,

economic difficulties, and parents lack of literacy

(including digital skills), many children could not rely

on the stable environment and learning support they

needed to adapt to new ways of acquiring knowledge.

In most European countries, children from the least

socially and economically prosperous families often

do not have the opportunity to spend time reading,

study in a quiet room, and enjoy parental support

when schools are closed. In both low-income and

upper-middle-income countries, children from the

poorest families receive significantly less help with

homework (Save Our Future, 2020).

4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Thus, in order to recover from the pandemic and

return to the implementation of SDG 4, UNESCO

recommends that Governments take additional

organizational and financial measures in 2021 to:

 Restore the knowledge lost by students during

the closure of schools;

 Maintaining the student-teacher ratio at an

optimal level;

 Compliance with sanitary requirements,

physical distancing measures;

 Education popularization, continuing

education motivation;

 Distance education technologies development.

According to UNESCO, the additional costs

resulting from the closure of schools due to COVID-

19 could increase the funding deficit for SDG 4 by

almost a third. However, the immediate

implementation of programs aimed at restoring the

knowledge and skills lost by students, as well as their

return to school, could reduce the amount of

additional costs by at least 75%.

At the international level, to address the

challenges of achieving SDG 4 in the context of the

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687

pandemic, the Education Cannot Wait Foundation

(Education Cannot Wait) has been established to

address education in emergency situations. The

possibility of creating an International Financing

Facility for Education (International Financing

Facility for Education), that is a mechanism for

attracting loans for education through international

banks, is being discussed.

UNESCO warns of the risk that, in a crisis,

education will no longer be a priority for

Governments in their domestic and international

development policies. The pandemic has significantly

affected the economies of the donor countries. What's

more, travel restrictions and a persistent Digest.

Development outlook: Projections for 2021 and

uncertainty will hinder the implementation of

technical development assistance programmes,

despite the increased need to support the pandemic

response through distance learning mechanisms.

In this regard, the United Nations has called on

Governments to prioritize education in their financial

decisions; to find a balance between health risks and

risks in the field of education and child protection; to

increase budget allocations for education; and to

include education in the focus of international

solidarity actions.

The UN emphasizes that the crisis caused by the

pandemic can be an opportunity to rethink the

concept of education, to take a step towards creating

promising systems that provide quality education for

all, to modernize the lifelong learning concepts. It is

necessary to rely on flexible teaching methods, digital

technologies and updated curricula, while ensuring

the continued teachers support.

The main task for world leaders and the entire

educational community should be preventing the

education crisis from turning into a generational

catastrophe. This is the best way not only to protect

the rights of millions of students, but also to promote

economic progress, sustainable development and

lasting peace.

The UNESCO-led Global Coalition on Education,

which includes United Nations entities, international

organizations, private sector actors and

representatives of civil society, is currently taking

active steps to support the education response adopted

by countries in connection with COVID-1956. The

new campaign, entitled "Save Our Future", will help

expand global support for ongoing education

activities.

To mitigate the potentially devastating impact of

the COVID-19 pandemic, Governments and

stakeholders are encouraged to adopt the strategic

responses outlined below:

1. The suppression of the virus spread and careful

planning for schools reopening:

The most effective measure that countries can

take to reopen schools and other educational

institutions as soon as possible is to suppress the virus

transmission in order to contain outbreaks at the

national or local level. After that, they should be

guided by the following parameters in the difficult

task of returning to school: ensuring the safety of

everyone; planning for the schools opening in an

inclusive manner; taking into account the views of all

stakeholders; and coordinating with key subjects,

including health professionals (UNESCO, Global

Education Monitoring (GEM) Report, 2020).

2. Protecting the education funding sources and

coordinating actions to achieve the results:

The pandemic has caused the deepest global crisis

in modern history, which will have long-term

consequences for the economy and public finances.

National authorities and the international community

need to protect the education funding sources in the

following ways: better mobilization of domestic

revenue, prioritization of education spending and

addressing inefficiencies in education spending; the

international cooperation strengthening to address the

debt crisis; and protecting sources of official

development assistance (ODA) for education.

3. Building viable education systems for equitable

and sustainable development:

Improving the resilience of education systems

enables countries to address the immediate challenges

of safely reopening schools and prepares them to

better cope with future crises. In this regard,

Governments could focus on equity and inclusion;

strengthening risk management capacity at all system

levels; ensuring strong leadership and coordination;

and strengthening consultation and communication

mechanisms.

4. Education rethinking and accelerating

transformation in teaching and learning:

The large-scale efforts made in a short time to

respond to shocks in education systems remind us that

transformation is achievable. It is necessary to use

this opportunity to find new ways to overcome the

crisis in the field of education and to develop a set of

solutions, the implementation of which was

previously considered difficult or impossible.

Efforts in this direction should focus on the

following starting points: addressing the loss of

knowledge and preventing drop-out, especially

among marginalized groups; developing skills

through employment opportunity programmes;

supporting the teaching profession and ensuring

teacher readiness; expanding the definition of the

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688

right to education by including the right to e-access;

removing barriers to e-access; improving the quality

of data and monitoring tools in education; increase

the coherence and flexibility level with respect to the

different levels and types of learning and training.

5 CONCLUSION

The shock that the education system has experienced

because of COVID-19 is unprecedented. It has

reversed the achievement of international education

goals and disproportionately affected less prosperous

and more vulnerable population groups.

Nevertheless, the educational community has

demonstrated its resilience and laid the foundation for

further recovery.

There is still a risk of the situation deterioration, a

downward movement, accompanied by loss of

knowledge and isolation. However, each danger of

worsening socioeconomic circumstances is an

occasion to think about the opposite, i.e. about how to

change the situation for the better and build in the

future an education system that meets all our

requirements: to carry out an all-encompassing

transformation in teaching and to realize the potential

of each individual and the whole society in all spheres

of life through investment in education.

In pursuing the restoring basic educational

services goal and reviving its primary purpose,

humanity can count on unlimited motivation and

unexploited potential. Governments and the

international community have a responsibility to

remain committed to the principles and to implement

the necessary reforms, not only to enable children and

young people to look forward to the future they have

been promised, but also to ensure that all education

workers contribute to this goal.

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ustoychivogo-razvitiya-0

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https://saveourfuture.world/

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