Zavod 14 is pleased to present a comparative study on Covid-19 pandemic’s impact on higher education in Europe, supported by Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom (FNF). The higher education system is an important pillar of each society’s development. In February 2020 the European higher education system was faced with an unexpected challenge – a Covid-19 pandemic. In a period of just a few months, the Covid-19 pandemic, caused by the novel coronavirus radically changed the lives of masses of people, including higher education students. Apart from the devastating health consequences for those directly affected by the virus, the Covid-19 pandemic holds major implications for the way higher education students live and work, affecting their physical and mental well-being in profound ways (CovidSocLab, 2020).
Therefore, in order to understand the situation and to propose the recommendations for improvements in case the situation will be similar in the following year or two, the main objective of the study is to provide the insight into the situation in the following areas: (1) Definition of Covid-19 and key changes in European society during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic; (2) Analysis of the higher education systems in Europe during the Covid-19 pandemic; (3) Case studies of selected countries; (4) Lessons learned after the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic; (5) Policy Implications for European Union member states in higher education sphere. The main purpose of the study is to detect best practices and the opportunities to improve the abovementioned situation in the coming years/semesters. The findings of this study are interesting from the academic (research and debate) as well as from the practical (suggestions for improvements) perspective. The research is carried out on literature review and analysis of the secondary data by different stakeholders, e.g. European Commission, other international organisations (e.g. WHO, UN), governments’ institutions, networks, research and educational institutions and others.
Donwload the full publication here: Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Higher Education in Europe
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