1. Key Policy Questions and related issues:
1) What are the challenges of fair online education, and inclusive solutions?
2) Why fair online education is essential to be taken seriously by the international community and what is the bottleneck to solve this problem?
3) How to ensure the engagement of vulnerable groups - people with disabilities, migrants,
refugees and ethnic minorities?
2. Summary of Issues Discussed:
There was broad support for the view that online education is a huge opportunity for development. There is a need to invest in capacity – infrastructure, human resources, policies, guidelines. There is a need to adopt new pedagogical models and develop new curricula. It is important to find inclusive solutions for fair online education, especially at the time of COVID-19 pandemics. Panellists also agreed that due to the rapid growth of pandemic cases in this emergency, many people have to study from home over information networks. Especially, challenges of fair online education are well identified. Moreover, they agreed that poor internet connection, lack of Technological resources (e.g., laptops), noisy environment and human capital, vulnerable groups could cause inequalities in education, which require more efficient and inclusive solutions to reduce when facing these kinds of accidents. Further discussions are needed on the detailed description for the implementation of fair online education at the operational level.
7. Reflection to Gender Issues:
The issues discussed in this workshop are concerning everyone involved in online education, including students and their parents, teachers, government employees, school staffs and so on. The discussion did not directly address issues related to gender equality and/or women’s empowerment. Recommendations were put forward on how to find effective methods to handle possible gaps caused by disabilities, gender, and inequality in online education, as well as how to make online education inclusion and equality.
10. Voluntary Commitment:
Prof. Yang Yang will work together with other partners such as civil society organizations, government agencies in China, to create more awareness in all communities about fair online education.