Responding to COVID-19 in the MENA Region: Insights on Education and Communication Challenges
Special Session 4-2, 2020 Annual Meeting
On Tuesday, October 13 at 12:00 pm
Special Session Description
As the world continues to cope with the sudden and unprecedented disruption to education and social interaction the COVID-19 pandemic has caused, observations of how certain challenges and communication behaviors will be affected in the future are key. This panel examines emerging practices in formal and informal education across the MENA region in an attempt to better understand some of the pertinent challenges and opportunities the pandemic brought to individuals and institutions alike. The first two papers examine educational policy and curriculum in response to COVID-19. The first paper critically addresses the transparency of the official narrative communicated by the Egyptian Ministry of Education locally and internationally, and how it has been perceived by teachers across the country. Although Egypt’s recent COVID-19 educational policies have been internationally endorsed, there seems to be a gap in the government’s international narrative and the implementation of these policies on the ground. The second paper discusses the role of social sciences curricula in enriching learners’ historical agency and democratic engagement during these uncertain times. For learners to perceive COVID-19 as an opportunity for positive social change, curricula need to effectively situate their abilities in the wider socioeconomic context and impact of the pandemic. The other two papers show how digital practices have shifted during the COVID-19 pandemic by looking into cases of social media interaction and access to open educational resources made available online. The third panel paper is a preliminary study that looks into informal learning communities amongst Middle Eastern women on Facebook groups and ripple effect into society. While many have suffered from diffusion of information on social media during the pandemic, women in the Middle East have re-created narratives of solidarity and social justice; redefining social identity and the power dynamics in virtual human interaction. The fourth paper highlights the stressing need of access to open educational resources among underserved and endangered communities in the MENA region. With the rise of calls for education equality and social inclusion, limited access to Arabic digital educational content and the lack of diversity in content design approaches are two challenges to be addressed by governments, international organizations and agencies, and digital content designers immediately.
Despite physical isolation measures deemed necessary due to COVID-19, social interaction continues virtually. While formal education has moved to the online space, it is also worthwhile to consider “informal” education on social media. With the advent of Facebook groups that have moderated membership and content, communities exist where women can ask very personal questions, share stories anonymously, and crowdsource advice and empathy in unique ways prior to these technologies.This space may serve as a refuge for women to share experience with pseudo-anonymity, rendering it a safe space for sharing that is distanced from how these women might appear and act in physical spaces or other Facebook spaces that are not rendered “women’s only”. The content in these spaces could provide alternative narratives around women in Muslim majority countries. It may also instigate important social justices as demonstrated by recent rape and harrassment charges in Egypt brought on initially through anonymous reports and circulation on social media. Women can share their “dreams, desires, anger, and disappointments—in their own words” (Abu-Lughod, 2013, 5) quite literally within
these spaces. How has the digital space allowed for a different kind of human interaction, as did the print revolution? I deliberate on how the digital space could be analyzed inspired by Messick, Ong, and Hirschkind in their analysis of text, orality, the audiovisual and its effect on the physical space. This conceptual research explores how a digital ethnography of selective women’s Facebook
groups show about their negotiations of relationships. I explore the features of online Facebook groups that define them as community, while expanding on current research methodologically through participant observation, content analysis, and interviewing moderators and other willing
participants.
The onset of COVID-19 has impacted education access and learning in low-income and refugee communities across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. A recent survey by Education Cannot Wait shows that more than 100 million learners have been affected since the closure of schools, universities and vocational training institutions. With many governments moving to remote and blended learning modalities, access to digital educational content becomes more crucial to mitigate the learning gap across vulnerable and disadvantaged communities and to facilitate the continuity of education in virtual mediums. Despite all the governmental and organizational efforts put to produce interactive digital educational content in the past two decades, Arabic digital content still represents less than 3% of the global digital content. To guarantee continued access to Arabic digital educational resources during COVID-19, identifying gaps in learning design approaches in Arabic digital educational content design is key to advise on emerging practices in the field.
This study examines 200 endorsed digital Arabic sources in the areas of Arabic and English literacy, STEM, and life skills in K-12 and higher education contexts. The findings highlight a scarcity in the quantity of open access resources, a lack of diverse investment habits that fulfill the different learning needs, marginalization of learners with disabilities, and a lack of local adaptation of translated content. Based on the findings, the study suggests several recommendations for governments, content creators and philanthropists to bridge the digital divide of Arabic content across the MENA region.
Keywords: COVID-19, Open Educational Resources, Arabic digital educational content, refugee education
Hiba Ibrahim is a PhD student of applied linguistics at York University in Canada. Her research includes sociocultural theory, intercultural communicative competence in virtual exchange encounters, technology-mediated language learning, and teaching, language, culture and identity.
In this paper, the Egyptian education system’s response to the COVID-19 crisis will be discussed in order to determine the successes and failures of the system’s attempt to face such a challenge. Egypt has gained international recognition in recent months for the apparent success of its educational strategies in response to the ongoing pandemic. For example, the World Bank hosted a webinar in July 2020, during which the Egyptian government’s official narrative on the successes of its education system was shared during a session titled, “Lessons Learned from Egypt during the Pandemic.” This narrative, presented by the Egyptian Minister of Education, champions Egypt for having implemented adaptations to its educational system in response to COVID-19 related challenges, and suggests that other countries might learn from Egypt’s example.
This paper proceeds by describing the pre-COVID Egyptian education system in detail, followed by a description of recent adaptations and adjustments made in response to the ongoing pandemic. An analysis of the official government narrative related to the successes of Egypt’s education system is also provided. A comparison of the language used by the Minister of Education at international events, such as the aforementioned World Bank webinar, to the language he uses in local Egyptian media indicates there are contradicting narratives on this subject, depending on the Minister’s target audience. Finally, to test the credibility of the government’s official narrative on this matter, a survey is under development at the time of this abstract’s submission to be sent to Egyptian teachers. The results of the survey are intended to evaluate teachers’ perceptions of COVID-related changes to the country’s education system compared to the official government narrative projecting Egypt as a success story for how to navigate education-related challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Given the complexity of COVID 19 and its unprecedented spread and impact, many social studies educators are attempting to address it in newly developed curricula. Yet, designing curricula around COVID 19 raises questions around understanding its broader historical and socioeconomic context and impact, as well as linking it to students’ democratic participation abilities. Thus, historical agency is the catalyst between both notions of historical understanding and democratic citizenship. It attempts to enhance students’ sense of ownership over their societies through a) developing the awareness that agency is a lens of making sense of history and b) by providing opportunities to explicitly connect historical agency to the choices that people face today (Barton, 2012).
This study examines how Egyptian teachers in alternative education networks are fostering and addressing historical agency in their newly developed curricula on COVID 19. This paper aims to conduct a content analysis of the “essential questions” used by educators to guide their lesson planning. Essential questions have proven to “direct student learning” as well as “commit students to the processes of creative and critical thinking through inquiry” (Wilhelm, 2014). The paper also explores two main questions around historical agency: a) Is Interaction with COVID addressed in individual acts of resilience or in collective actions and group struggle? b) Are students portrayed in the lesson plans as makers or as receivers of history? The findings should help shed light on biases educators in Egypt have in their perceptions of the virus as a socio-historical phenomenon.
