Abstract
<p style="text-align:justify">This article analyses the strategies of the four United Kingdom (UK) nations to mitigate the impacts of primary school closures and the shift to remote learning due to the outbreak of the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. A theoretical framework based on a combination of the field literature of strategy and public value was developed to analyze their initiatives. This is a qualitative and exploratory study, and its data was collected from each country’s website, research papers, and media news. The findings reveal five key areas of action: remote learning; keeping schools open to assist vulnerable students and key workers’ children; access to the Internet and electronic devices to mitigate the digital divide; free meals to disadvantaged learners; and students’ assessment. The analysis suggests that the four nations initially adopted a coordinated action and gradually followed three different paths: deliberate strategies, adjustment to the pandemic situation, and development of emergent strategies. The variegate of strategies show the innovative capacity of the countries and the search for public value. Further research is suggested to address the impact of the strategies.</p>
Highlights
The United Kingdom (UK) is one of the hardest-hit countries by the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the world, with more than 6.6 million cases and more than 132,000 deaths as of August 28, 2021 (Worldometer, 2021), and its response in many fields has been widely criticized (Anderson et al, 2020; Gurdasani et al, 2020), revealing the complexity to deal with super wicked societal challenges (Bekkers et al, 2011; Bryson et al, 2021; Engler et al, 2020)
This article analyses the strategies of the four United Kingdom (UK) nations to mitigate the impacts of primary school closures and the shift to remote learning due to the outbreak of the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic
The findings reveal that countries have developed initiatives in five key areas: promoting remote learning; keeping schools open to assist vulnerable students and the children of key workers; providing access to the Internet and electronic devices to mitigate the digital divide; providing free meals to disadvantaged learners; and students’ assessment
Summary
The United Kingdom (UK) is one of the hardest-hit countries by the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the world, with more than 6.6 million cases and more than 132,000 deaths as of August 28, 2021 (Worldometer, 2021), and its response in many fields has been widely criticized (Anderson et al, 2020; Gurdasani et al, 2020), revealing the complexity to deal with super wicked societal challenges (Bekkers et al, 2011; Bryson et al, 2021; Engler et al, 2020). The government’s initiatives to deal with the impact of the outbreak in primary education have been far from compelling for the four UK nations and raised several issues across them. The data of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO, 2020) shows that by March 30, 2020, schools had been temporarily shut down in 167 countries and almost 1.450 billion students were at home, one of the highest levels during this outbreak. The shift to online learning raises apprehension regarding the digital divide, since adequate devices and Internet connections are necessary for it, as well as information and communication technology (ICT) skills associated with home schooling (Armitage & Nellums, 2020). 28% of all households in the UK do not have the necessary equipment due to its high cost, and 34% declared a lack of ICT skills as a reason for not having a computer at home
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