The second survey on the safe reopening of schools was active from February to October 2021. The aim of this survey was to gather the experiences and opinions of education and health professionals about the processes in place in their countries and territories to reopen schools safely during the COVID-19 pandemic, and to keep them open. With the collaboration of our Consortium partners, an online survey has been disseminated all around the world in seven languages (Arabic, English, French, German, Mandarin, Portuguese and Spanish), which resulted in contributions from 72 countries, see figure 1.
Many themes are covered by the survey: the implementation of infection control measures in schools, the impact of infection control measures (on students and staff), the guidance and training received, the enablers and barriers to reopening schools and intersectoral working in schools. As a first step, we are glad to share the preliminary results on intersectoral collaboration and training.
In addition to the online survey, 125 follow-up interviews were conducted online between March and December 2021 with education and health professionals in 6 languages (Arabic, English, French, Mandarin, Portuguese and Spanish). The interviews explored the following themes: (i) the effect of the pandemic on schools, pupils and teachers; (ii) the reorganisation of schools during lockdowns and the return to class; (iii) the experience of implementing infection control measures in schools; (iv) intersectoral working in schools; (v) and the important resources for keeping schools open.
Consortium partners
The survey is conducted by the UNESCO Chair and WHO Collaborating Center in Global Health & Education with the support of its consortium partners from ASCD, CHAIN, Education International, EUPHA Child and Adolescent Public Health, EUPHA Health Promotion, GCU London, IAAH and their Young Professionals’ Network, IUHPE, NCD Child, UCA and the SHE Network.
The researchers involved are:
Prof Antony Morgan[1], Carole Andriamampandry[2], Catherine Chabot[3], Christelle Kongne[2], Dr Danielle Jansen[4], Prof Didier Jourdan[2],[3] Elias Lima Junior[5], Fan Zhu[6], Prof Fu-Li Chen[7], Prof Graça S. Carvalho[8], Guiyin Zhu[7], Hannah Ogunkunle[1], Insa Backhaus[11], Prof Julia Dratva[9], Kennedy Ouma Sigodo[1], Lara Debes[2], Leonel Lusquinhos[8], Luis Perez[1], Prof Manecas Azevedo[10], Mayara da Mota Matos[5], MinChien Tsai[3], Miranda Beck[11], Mohamed Essoussi[1], Dr Nicola Gray[3],[12], Norberto Jose Palange[10], Dr Orkan Okan[13], Prof Peter Paulus[14], Dr Raúl Mercer[15], Regina Alves[8], Prof Roberto Tadeu Iaochite[5], Roraima Alves da Costa Filho[5], Sachi Tomokawa[16], Shraddha Manandhar[12], Simone Alves Pedersen[5], Prof Sonia Saxena[17], Tatiana Saad[2], Prof Terje Andreas Eikemo[11], Vitor Oliveira[8], Prof Yifei Hu[6], Prof Yinghua Ma[6], Zélia Anastácio[8]
[1] Glasgow Caledonian University, London, UK
[2] Clermont Auvergne University, France
[3] UNESCO Chair Global Health & Education
[4] Groningen University, the Netherlands
[5] São Paulo State University, Brazil
[6] Peking University, China
[7] Fu-Jen Catholic University, Taipei
[8] University of Minho, Portugal
[9] University of Basel, Switzerland
[10] Universidade Pedagógica de Nampula, Mozambique
[11] Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway
[12] University of Huddersfield, UK
[13] Bielefeld University, Germany
[14] Leuphana University, Germany
[15] FLACSO (Latin American School of Social Sciences), Argentina
[16] Shinshu University, Japan
[17] Imperial College London, UK