Disrupting the national education policy framework: covid-19 measures during the pandemic

Abstract

ABSTRACT This research note seeks to describe and categorise the responses to the covid-19 pandemic in education in four Canadian provinces between March 2020 and June 2021. It shows that there was a significant variation in the measures that were adopted. Indeed, New Brunswick and Ontario’s social distancing measures in school were much stricter than that of Québec and Alberta. Additionally, Ontario and to a lesser extent Alberta relied on remote learning to a greater degree than the other two provinces. This variation cannot be simply brushed off because of the difference in the number of cases and rather suggests that, in times of crisis, provincial policy responses tend to vary due to framing differences. This research note contributes to federalism literature, exploring the role of subnational governments across an extended period of the pandemic.