UNESCO-ICHEI’s innovative education project, IIOE, is incorporated as a successful example into the latest publication of UNESCO-IBE: Learning to build back better futures for education: Lessons from educational innovation during the COVID-19 pandemic.

About the Book

Focusing on operational strategies for change in education, this book aims to enhance the resilience of education systems in the face of future unpredictable situations, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on the goals and extensive work of the Global Education Innovation Initiative at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, the aspirations of the Hybrid Education, Learning and Assessment (HELA) initiative of the UNESCO International Bureau of Education (IBE) and the inspiring vision of UNESCO's Futures of Education initiative, this book presents a collection of 31 best practices of educational innovation from all around the world that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim is to provide useful approaches and valuable lessons for future educational transformation.

“We selected these programmes because they address elements of a vision of the future of education that is ambitious and forward-looking, that seeks to educate students holistically, that is designed to strengthen the resilience of students and schools, and of communities at large. We also selected them because they demonstrated an ability to scale up, and to do so in sustainable ways.” The studied innovations are grouped into the following five categories: Supporting student-centred learning, Supporting deeper learning, Supporting student socio-emotional development and wellbeing, Teacher and school principal professional development, Family engagement. Referring to the International Institute of Online Education (IIOE), the book highlights that IIOE has supported the digital transformation of pedagogy, thus improving the efficiency of teaching and learning and that it has the potential to achieve multidimensional innovation.

The latest UNESCO report Reimagining Our Futures Together: A New Social Contract for Education on November 10, 2021, pointed out that education and the human living environment are deteriorating due to COVID-19. In this context, the importance of digital technologies, tools, and platforms for distance learning, as well as the significance of scientific literacy for identifying misinformation and hindering the further propagation of fake news should be highlighted. The report also made a point of emphasising that education cannot be completely conducted in an online setting. Digital technology should aim at supporting rather than replacing schools. Therefore, the following two foundational principles are proposed for the future of education: an expanded vision of the right to education throughout life, and the strengthening of education as a public and a common good.

The unexpected outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has stimulated the potential for innovation among educators around the world. Teachers and students have together risen to the challenge to ensure the sustainability of educational activities. The successful examples selected in the book will inspire broader innovations in education, so as to mitigate risk, boost educational recovery, build resilience and advance future educational transformations. At the same time, it also provides a more practical and effective practice model for the futures of education.

Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in less developed countries can greatly benefit from a supportive ecosystem such as the International Institute of Online Education (IIOE) during the COVID-19 pandemic. The IIOE will assist HEIs in developing countries with their digital transformation, as well as providing students with quality and inclusive higher education while encouraging them to be life-long learners.

During the early stages of design and planning of IIOE, UNESCO-ICHEI and its partners began to build a hub of multilingual resources for ICT-enabled higher education against the backdrop of the COVID-19 education crisis. In addition, UNESCO-ICHEI conducted multiple rounds of in-depth situation analysis, and a literature review on the current states and needs for digital transformation of higher education in both Asia and Africa. UNESCO-ICHEI also developed the IIOE Competency Framework for Higher Education Workforce to serve HEWs as a professional development roadmap for the future of education, while guiding HEWs to adapt to technology transformation through future IIOE programmes.

It should also be noted that the partnership model of the IIOE and UNESCO-ICHEI has allowed the IIOE to achieve a depth of impact worldwide, especially in its partner HEIs and their corresponding countries.

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