Prof Tan Oon Seng Speaks on Educating in a Post-COVID World

2020 has been a most challenging year for teachers worldwide because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Education has been seriously disrupted for hundreds of millions of students. Between the months of July and October, Prof Tan Oon Seng, Centre Director of the Centre for Research in Child Development and Professor in the Psychology and Child & Human Development Academic Group, spoke on educating in a post-COVID world at two panel discussions.

Forum for World Education Conference

On July 22 2020, at an online conference organised by the Forum for World Education (FWE) on “Meeting the Challenges posed by the COVID-19 Pandemic to the Future of Our Worldwide Education Infrastructure: What can we do together?” The conference addressed the issue of how collective action is needed to build a worldwide education infrastructure, where we can help system leaders to look more seriously at evidence and good practice in their own countries and elsewhere to become more knowledgeable of what works in which contexts and how to apply it consciously.

Prof Tan spoke on the importance of innovation in curriculum and pedagogy and supporting learners in disadvantaged circumstances. On the panel with Prof Tan were speakers such as Cheng Davis, FWE President; Condoleezza Rice, 66^th US Secretary of State; Dr Eric Hanushek, Paul and Jean Hanna Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University; Prof Lin Goodwin, Dean of the Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong; and Dr Susan Sclafani, Former US Assistant Secretary of Education and FWE Vice President. A special feature of the conference was a showcase of initiatives from young leaders from around the world.  These young participants participated in conversations with the panel members about their work with the FWE to use their innovations to intervene with disadvantaged youth in New York during the pandemic.

Watch the recording of the session here:

Special Panel by Harvard University in Celebration of World Teachers Day

Globally, teachers rose to the occasion to bring education online to reach out to learners to ensure continuity of learning. Thus, to celebrate World Teachers Day on 5 October 2020, Harvard University hosted a special panel themed “Supporting Teachers to Educate Students for a Challenging World: A Panel Discussion of Research of the Global Education Innovation Initiative”. The panel members comprised leaders of global education across USA, South America, Europe and Asia. Such as Prof Tan, Prof Fernando Reimers, Ford Foundation Professor of Practice in International Education and Faculty Director of the International Education Policy Programme, Claudia Costin, Founder of the Innovation and Excellence in Education Policies Think Tank, and Elisa Bonilla, Director-General of Curriculum Development at Mexican Department of Education and Visiting Scholar at the David Rockefeller Centre for Latin American Studies.

In his speech, Prof Tan emphasised the need to “STIR” support for teachers as heroes of education. “STIR” is an acronym Prof Tan used to capture key ideas of:
1. Social Responsibility, where Prof Tan encouraged policy makers and educators to highlight the inculcation of social responsibility, based on a good understanding of the science of proactive approaches, to deal with the pandemic and future situations.
2. Technology, as an important catalyst to transform learning at scale and to address inequity.
3. Inspiration, through the Harvard Global Education Innovation Initiative to help educators worldwide with creative ideas and pragmatic resources as giving hope and inspiring learning form the crux of helping teachers, learners, and collaborations.
4. Research. Finally, Prof Tan raised the importance of research and evidence-informed thinking to bring education forward especially through international collaboration, networks, and conversation.

The celebration was attended by networks of educators worldwide including participants from the  Academy of Singapore Teachers.