Higher education in Peru in COVID-19 times: Resilience based

on sustainable development goals

Aldo Alvarez-Risco1, Shyla Del Aguila-Arcentales2

ABSTRACT
COVID-19 had a global impact at different levels. With more than 6 million deaths in the
world and more than 200,000 people dead in Peru, it had a diverse impact on the business
(Apcho-Ccencho et al., 2021; Meyer et al., 2022; Yan et al., 2021) and on a personal level,
such as health (Zhang et al., 2022) and, most importantly, education. The changes that
have occurred in education have been previously reported as the expectations of students
regarding the Sustainable Development Goals (Alvarez-Risco, Del-Aguila-Arcentales,
Rosen, et al., 2021) for development after COVID-19, the generation of technostress
(Alvarez-Risco, Del-Aguila-Arcentales, Yáñez, et al., 2021) by the increased load of
virtual information, the development of multitasking skills by students and their impact on
the perception of performance (Alvarez-Risco, Estrada-Merino, et al., 2021). Given this
scenario, this chapter explains the experience of adaptation to higher education in Peru.

The changes that have occurred in education have been previously reported as the
expectations of students regarding the Sustainable Development Goals, the generation of
technostress by the increased load of virtual information, the development of multitasking
skills by students and their impact on the perception of performance. Given this scenario,
this chapter explains the experience of adaptation of higher education in Peru due to the
limitations generated by the lockdown during the pandemic. First, the economic,
demographic and social profile of Peru is described, detailing the impact on people's lives
and health; then, the different changes that have been generated in Peruvian universities are
presented, such as the implementation of virtual classes through different LMS, the
training of students and professors for the efficient use of such technology, the changes
made in the teaching materials as well as the synchronous and asynchronous evaluation
formats. Likewise, we will detail the differences that have occurred in this adaptation,
which did not occur in the same way in universities in the main cities and in those located
in more distant places. The changes made by the government to support distance education
from the universities will be shown; therefore, a critical analysis will also be made to
detect the aspects that could have been more efficient. Finally, a review of the
technological and methodological changes used during the pandemic will be made to
consider their use in the post-pandemic period and to evaluate which teaching formats
could be abandoned in favor of the incorporation of others. It will be important to highlight
in the chapter the different leadership actions that have been developed to ensure that the
transition has been successful in Peruvian universities.

Keywords: Higher education, COVID-19, VUCA, sustainable development goals,

1
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