Abstract

MUDALY, Ronicka  and  MUDALY, Vimolan. Exploring how the national COVID-19 pandemic policy and its application exposed the fault lines of educational inequality. Journal of Education [online]. 2021, n.84, pp.106-124. ISSN 2520-9868.  http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i84a06.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many surveys in education were conducted. These revealed alarming statistics about learners losing half of the academic year, parents' anxiety about sending children to school, and a minority of education institutions being able to offer online teaching. In response to a cacophony from teachers' and students' unions, school governing body representatives, scientists and education experts, the government decided to close education institutions as part of what was known as the hard lockdown. Against this background, we used critical policy analysis (CPA) to explore decision-making by education departments and the enactment of these decisions at schools. This qualitative study revealed iniquity and inequity as departments of education made decisions to close and reopen institutions. The findings revealed a tension between expectations of producers of policy and enactors of policy within unequal school settings. We recommend a repositioning from the perspective of the dispossessed to inform future policy.

Keywords : critical policy analysis; educational inequality; educational policy; policy enactment.

        · text in English     · English ( pdf )