The Covid-19 pandemic has brought global disruption to the Higher Education sector, severely impacting the functioning of international partnerships. Restrictions on movement and lockdown uncertainties have hampered the mobility of both international and home students, as well as staff.

The educational landscape has always been a place of individual behaviours and learning styles, but the environment has continued to evolve with the inclusion of more children with SEN (Special Education Needs) than ever into mainstream education. Advanced care in the medical world and better detection of conditions such as autism, have meant that the number of children with additional needs has increased, at the same time as places within specialist educational settings have declined. That leaves colleges in the UK working with SEN students more than ever, often without much in the way of additional resources to support this.

Data from a recent global survey by i-graduate adds to the enormous body of data about COVID-19. i-graduate’s COVID-19 Response Barometer surveyed over 24,000 students in eleven countries and provides valuable insight into education institutions’ response to COVID-19 from the perspective of current students.

This article, part of a series drawing on the survey data, was originally conceived to explore to what extent government policy has impacted students’ satisfaction with their institution’s response to COVID-19. However, it quickly became apparent that the situation is too complex to draw any meaningful conclusions on this.

National comparisons in themselves, however, provide some food for thought.

It is abundantly clear that countries around the world have reacted very differently to the COVID pandemic and when we reach the other side of this, we may eventually get a better perspective on whose strategy was the most successful. In Higher Education it has been a gargantuan struggle to get courses online at short notice as well as providing security and safety for students.

I-graduate’s COVID survey seeks to get a global sense of student satisfaction with the institutional response both in terms of the communication to the students about the pandemic and the quality of the online provision. We had responses from over 24,000 students.

Migrating services to the cloud in higher education is happening at a faster rate than ever before. According to Tribal’s CTO, Mike Cope, this is primarily because the sector’s appetite for risk has changed as education institutions seek solutions that provide the most up to date capability, for the maximum number of use cases, whilst also providing enough flexibility to adapt to increasingly frequent business changes.

Cloud technology in education

There’s little doubt that the world of skills training and work has altered dramatically over the past few months. Many training providers have managed to adapt their practices and deliver apprenticeship frameworks online to great success. And as restrictions start to ease, and educators and employers alike turn their thoughts to the future, there will be a necessary re-alignment in working practice. So how do you get your Apprenticeship delivery back on track this autumn? 

Times might be challenging for school leaders right now, but it seems many are forging ahead with their commitment to continuous quality improvement, and giving their schools reason to celebrate at the beginning of the academic year.

The outbreak of COVID-19 in early 2020 was, in modern times, unprecedented. And it required an unprecedented response from education institutions around the world.

Now, over six months on from the emergence of the global pandemic and with many institutions preparing for the start of a new and potentially uncertain academic year, it is useful to gauge how students feel about their institution’s response to COVID-19 to date. How have institutions performed on communicating key information to their students throughout the event? How successful was the – in most cases, very rapid – transition to online learning? What should institutions be aware of in terms of student experience as they navigate through the COVID-19 era?