REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

The coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak disrupted life around the globe in 2020. As in
any other sector, the COVID-19 pandemic affected education in many ways. Government actions
have followed a common goal of reducing the spread of coronavirus by introducing measures
limiting social contact. Many countries suspended face-to-face teaching and exams as well as
placing restrictions on immigration affecting students. Where possible, traditional classes are
being replaced with books and materials taken from school. Various e-learning platforms enable
interaction between teachers and students, and, in some cases, national television shows or social
media platforms are being used for education. Some education systems announced exceptional
holidays to better prepare for this distance-learning scenario.

As the world becomes increasingly interconnected, so do the risks we face. The COVID-19
pandemic has not stopped at national borders. It has affected people regardless of nationality,
level of education, income or gender. But the same has not been true for its consequences, which
have hit the most vulnerable hardest. Education is no exception. Students from privileged
backgrounds, supported by their parents and eager and able to learn, could find their way past
closed school doors to alternative learning opportunities. Those from disadvantaged backgrounds
often remained shut out when their schools shut down. This crisis has exposed the many
inadequacies and inequities in our education systems – from access to the broadband and
computers needed for online education, and the supportive environments needed to focus on
learning, up to the misalignment between resources and needs. The lockdowns in response to
COVID-19 have interrupted conventional schooling with nationwide school closures in most
OECD and partner countries, the majority lasting at least 10 weeks. While the educational
community have made concerted efforts to maintain learning continuity during this period,
children and students have had to rely more on their own resources to continue learning remotely
through the Internet, television or radio. Teachers also had to adapt to new pedagogical concepts
and modes of delivery of teaching, for which they may not have been trained. In particular,
learners in the most marginalised groups, who don’t have access to digital learning resources or
lack the resilience and engagement to learn on their own, are at risk of falling behind. The
COVID-19 pandemic has caused the largest disruption of education in history, having already
had a near universal impact on learners and teachers around the world, from pre-primary to
secondary schools, technical and vocational education and training (TVET) institutions,
universities, adult learning, and skills development establishments. By midApril 2020,
94 per cent of learners worldwide were affected by the pandemic, representing 1.58 billion
children and youth, from pre-primary to higher education, in 200 countries. (Hanushek E and
Woessman L, forthcoming).

In terms of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on different countries’ education systems
many differences exist. This lack of homogeneity is caused by such factors as the start and end
dates of academic years and the timing of school holidays. While some countries suspended in-
person classes from March/April until further notice, others were less restrictive, and universities
were only advised to reduce face-to-face teaching and replace it with online solutions wherever
practicable. In other cases, depending on the academic calendar, it was possible to postpone the
start of the summer semester.

Fortunately, there is a range of modern tools available to face the challenge of distance learning
imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Using these tools, the modification of contents that were
previously taught face-to-face is easily conceivable. There are however other important tasks in
the learning process, such as assessment or autonomous learning, that can still be challenging
without the direct supervision of teachers. The objective of this article is to reduce the
uncertainty in the assessment process in higher education during the COVID-19 pandemic. (T.
Gonzalez, M. A. de la Rubia, K. P. Hincz 2020)