To say the least, we were not prepared for disruption of this magnitude.

Almost overnight, schools and

universities around the world closed their gates, affecting 1.57 billion students in 191 countries. This
unprecedented situation has significantly impacted the lives of students, whether they are pursuing studies
abroad or in their own country.
The closures implemented as a measure to contain the Covid-19 pandemic, have led to an accelerated
deployment of distance education solutions to ensure pedagogical continuity. The obstacles are multiple, ranging
from low connectivity and lack of online content aligned with national curricula to teachers unprepared for this
‘new normal’.
Regardless of the level of education, the paramount danger is that learning inequalities will widen,
marginalization will increase, and the most disadvantaged students will find themselves unable to pursue their
studies. Higher education is no exception, even if at this level, digital technology has had the most far-reaching
impact over the past decades.
As the only United Nations agency with a mandate for higher education, our Organization is committed to
producing knowledge that informs the decision-making processes nationally and at the institutional level. This
is the value of this Report, prepared by the UNESCO International Institute for Higher Education in Latin
America and the Caribbean (UNESCO IESALC), the sole specialized institute of the United Nations system in
this field.
While it focuses primarily on the Latin American and Caribbean region, the strategies and research findings
apply more widely. The report highlights the immediate impacts of the pandemic on higher education,
particularly on the most vulnerable students. While not immediately visible, the impacts on equity and quality
are significant and will surface in the medium and long term.
The Report also reviews what actions governments and higher education institutions have taken to guarantee the
right to higher education during the pandemic. It considers various scenarios and offers some recommendations
on the reopening of institutions, highlighting the importance of initiating preparations at an early stage.
Finally, it addresses the challenges of the post-pandemic period, in terms of how to resume teaching and learning
in a dramatically different context. The analysis and recommendations are mainly intended for policymakers at
both the systemic and institutional level, to inform decision-making in the short, medium and long term.
This global crisis has triggered a reconceptualization of education provision at all levels. The intensive use of
different technological platforms and resources to ensure learning continuity is the boldest experiment in
educational technology – albeit unexpected and unplanned. We have to assess the results, have a better
understanding of what is working and why, and use this to increase inclusion, innovation and cooperation in
higher education.
If the UN’s 2030 Agenda was already reshaping higher education programmes, the current crisis is a clarion call
for universities to be the vanguard of change required to rebuild more resilient and cooperative foundations. This
means public support for tertiary institutions to defend research and innovation; transdisciplinary approaches to
address complexity; and wider knowledge sharing to unlock solutions. Immediate recovery requires measures
that are fair and transparent, to support students. From the start of the crisis, equity has been the guiding
principle of
UNESCO’s response. We have facilitated a global policy dialogue to respond to a multiplicity of challenges
surrounding teaching, learning, assessment and connectivity. More intensive international cooperation is the
only way forward to find answers that are fair, inclusive and innovative. This is the aim of UNESCO’s Covid19

Global Education Coalition, bringing together 80 multilateral, civil society, academic, non-profit and private
partners to support countries in deploying inclusive distance learning solutions.
No student should be left behind because of this crisis. I trust this report will be instrumental for all higher
education stakeholders as they uphold this principle and translate it into significant actions. Higher education
institutions house the talent and creativity the world needs to build more inclusive, resilient and sustainable
futures. UNESCO is committed to protecting them through the recovery period and going forward, on the basis
of human rights and societal responsibility.
Executive Summary
This Report, prepared by the technical team of the UNESCO International Institute for Higher Education
(IESALC), begins by highlighting the immediate impacts of the pandemic on the university higher education
sector, both in terms of the individual actors and the institutions and system as a whole. Some impacts, which are
not immediately visible, are nevertheless very significant, and will surface in the medium and long term.
Secondly, it reviews those actions taken by governments and HEIs to guarantee the right to higher education
during the pandemic. Finally, it considers various scenarios, and offers some observations and recommendations
with regard to the reopening of HEIs, and highlights the importance of initiating preparations at the earliest. The
current impacts of the crisis on higher education are easily documented, but it is debatable which ones will
leave their mark on the different actors in the medium and long term. The lack of references to similar crises
in the past makes it difficult to predict what may happen in the immediate future.
For the students, the most immediate impact has naturally been that of the temporary cessation of face to face
teaching at HEIs which has left them, particularly undergraduates and those who are about to finish upper
secondary and aspire to enter higher education, in a completely new situation, without a clear idea of how
long it will last, the immediate impacts on daily life, costs incurred and financial burdens and, of course, learning
continuity and international mobility.
Teachers are also impacted significantly at the workplace and professionally. First, the fact that not all HEIs
have strategies for the teaching continuity activity must be taken into account, and in this scenario, temporary
contracts may be terminated. Also, the most evident impact on teachers is the expectation, if not the requirement,
of the continuity of teaching activity, using a virtual modality.
Non-teaching staff constitute the most vulnerable sector in terms of the likely reduction in the number of jobs
that private universities, for example, would have to effect in the face of possible financial curtailment due to the
cancellation of fees or reduction in student enrollment.
It is clear that the temporary cessation globally of face- to- face activities has been a huge disruptor of the
functions of HEIs. The impact of this disruption is highly variable and depends, first, on their ability to remain
active in their academic activities and, second, on their financial sustainability.
In the event of a long duration of the cessation of face-to-face activities, that is, the equivalent of a quarter or
more, it is most likely that there will be a decline in demand in the short term and a spike in the next
academic year where fees are non-existent (for example, Argentina) or very affordable.
It is too early to estimate the future profile of the higher education offer. Probably, if the offer was entirely
public, it would be easy to predict that the number of centers and programs would hardly decrease. However,
public HEIs will reopen in an already full-blown economic recession and major cuts in public investment in
education are expected, such as those experienced during the 2008 financial crisis. In the case of private HEIs, it
is possible to anticipate crises that will lead to definitive closures.

Introduction
Since its foundation, the university, like any other social institution, has had to confront devastating epidemics
that have impacted on their daily operations. And they have survived and pursued their mission even with their
doors closed. In 1665, Cambridge University closed due to the black plague epidemic that struck England. Isaac
Newton had to return to Wools Thorpe Manor, his home. One day, sitting in the garden, he saw an apple fall and
this inspired him to formulate his theory of universal gravitation. At least, this is what he told William Stukeley
who included this anecdote in Newton's bio. Figured published after his death (Stukeley, 1752). The moral of
this story is that, inasmuch as the doors of higher education institutions have to be closed, academic activities
continue where there are souls committed to science and training, sometimes with surprising results.
Incidentally, the University of Cambridge has now closed its doors in 2020, for the second time in its history.
Currently, the temporary closures of higher education institutions (HEIs) due to the COVID-19 pandemic is no
longer news, because most countries have discontinued face-to-face teaching. UNESCO IESALC estimates,
reflected in the figure below, show that the temporary closure affects approximately 23.4 million higher
education students (ISCED 5, 6, 7 and 8) and 1.4 million teachers in Latin America and the Caribbean. This
represents approximately more than 98% of the region's population of higher education students and teachers.
As Figure 1 shows, the suspension of face-to-face activities has been extremely rapid in the region. It began on
March 12 in Colombia and Peru and, in a matter of six days, affected almost the entire population of higher
education students and teachers in the region. By March 17, the figure of 21.7 million students and 1.3 million
teachers affected by the temporary closures had already been reached.

The decision to temporarily close HEIs was prompted by the principle that large gatherings of persons constitute
a serious risk to safeguarding public health during a pandemic. HEIs and indeed all educational institutions tend
to close their doors in situations where some form of isolation or quarantine has been legislated. In Europe
today, all classroom activities have been suspended everywhere. In the United States, state authorities have
mandated closure, but the vast majority of campuses had already closed, particularly those of large public and
private universities had closed weeks before the government’s intervention. As the pandemic spreads, which
seems inevitable, the remaining countries will also institute mandatory measures to suspend face-to-face
activities for all educational institutions. In Latin America, isolation or quarantine measures were taken almost
immediately and, in some cases, with a long-term perspective. For example, in Argentina the suspension of face-
to-face classes was recommended on March 14; in Chile, full quarantine in some districts resulted in the massive
closure of HEIs as of March 16; in Colombia, all HEIs were closed following the health emergency decree of
March 12 which is expected to continue until May 30; in Cuba, HEIs were closed on March 25 for an indefinite
period; in Peru, face-to-face classes were suspended on March 16 initially for 15 days but this has now been
extended to 30 days; in El Salvador classes were suspended for 30 days until further notice on March 11; in
Uruguay, the University of the Republic ordered the suspension of classroom activities on March 15 for almost
30 days; in Venezuela a state of emergency was proclaimed on March 13, initially for 30 days. No one knows
for sure how long these closures are likely to last. Initial measures taken by many governments have ranged from
15 to 30 days, but one can easily anticipate that they will be extended until the pandemic subsides. It is not
unreasonable to imagine scenarios where this situation can last two months or more, or as in the case of Spain
and Italy where the decision was announced not to resume face to face classes for the rest of the academic year
which normally ends in June, although it is still possible that the university entrance exams (EBAU) will be
carried out in Spain in a face-to-face manner.
While the impact of the pandemic on HEIs was abrupt and in the majority of cases there was no contingency
plan other than to attempt to continue classes remotely, it is important that we start to consider a way out of this
crisis, ensuring the highest degree possible of inclusion and equity. Indeed, one could say that the pandemic
adds greater complexity to higher education globally but particularly in the region because of the still unresolved
challenges it faced such as growth without quality assurance, inequities in access and achievement, and the
progressive loss of public financing.

BSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic quickly led to the closure of universities and colleges around the world, in hopes that
public health officials’ advice of social distancing could help to flatten the infection curve and reduce total
fatalities from the disease. Drawing on Copenhagen school securitization theory and analyzing 25 declarations of
emergency eLearning at American universities, I argue that in addition to COVID-19 being framed as a general
threat, face-to-face schooling was also presented as a threat through these policies. A review of securitization
theory—with particular attention to the question of advocacy and the relationship of desecuritization to
emancipation—grounds the investigation theoretically. I argue that securitization theory is an important tool for
educators not only for observing (and understanding) the phenomenon of emergency eLearning, but also for
advocating the desecuritization of schooling after the COVID-19 crisis passes.

KEYWORDS: Securitization, COVID-19, state of exception, desecuritization, emancipation

Across the globe, the spread of novel coronavirus COVID-19 has led to profound changes in social interaction
and organization, and the education sector has not been immune. While the primary student population (of both
K-12 and postsecondary education) appears to be at a lower mortality risk category compared to older adults,
pandemic precautions called “social distancing” or “physical distancing” have attempted to reduce interpersonal
contact and thereby minimize the kind of community transmission that could develop quickly in dense social
networks like the university campus (Weeden & Cornwell, 2020). Following the logic of the exception—that
extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures—one common trend in education systems around the world
has been to respond to the pandemic with “emergency eLearning” protocols, marking the rapid transition of
face-to-face classes to online learning systems.
While public health officials largely agree that the general threat of COVID-19 is best fought with measures of
social distancing, the specific acts of instituting emergency eLearning protocols do not alter the pandemic itself,
but only indirectly by limiting face-to-face classroom interactions. To this end, I argue that there is an important
opportunity for Copenhagen school securitization theory to inform our observation of and advocacy within the
education sector during this critical time. A pandemic response that securitizes face-to-face instruction may well
be appropriate as a measure to support broader social distancing, but there is a cost to removing face-to-face
education from the realm of normal discourse. eLearning companies and political commentators in favor of
mandatory eLearning programs as a means of public austerity have already sought to normalize emergency
eLearning protocols (e.g., Katzman in Blumenstyk, 2020; Lilley, 2020). If we are to have any hope for an
emancipatory post-pandemic pedagogy, we require an open discourse unfathomable under conditions of
securitization. As I will argue through this article, the desecuritization of face-to-face schooling is imperative for
the future possibility of emancipatory pedagogy, whether face-to-face or online.

The article proceeds in four sections. The first outlines the classic Copenhagen school approach to securitization
theory and the place of desecuritization within the framework. The second section turns to the emergent medical
literature on COVID-19 to provide a background on what we know about the pandemic, and why measures of
social distancing are advised by the public health community. The third section frames the responses of
emergency eLearning as a securitization of face-to-face schooling by examining shared characteristics in
declarations of Emergency eLearning among a sample of 25 American universities, as well as more in-depth
analysis of comments made by the presidents of Harvard and Yale, while the conclusion discusses post-
pandemic pedagogy and considers the utility of securitization theory in educational contexts.

Securitization theory: A brief introduction

The classic form of Copenhagen school securitization theory identifies a suite of key actors and factors centered
on audience acceptance of a speech act. In the first major articulation, Waever ( 1995) maps out a model where
“in naming a certain development a security problem, the ‘state’ can claim a special right” (p. 54) to respond to
the problem. That an issue is a security issue is a matter of construction, as “the utterance is the primary reality”
(p. 55). A thing becomes a security issue when it securitized through a speech act.

This securitization framework was outlined more systematically in the magnum opus of the Copenhagen School
(Buzan et al., 1998). The speech act is clarified as an intersubjective construction, with two main parts. First,
there is the securitizing move, where the “threat” is presented as a security threat by a “securitizing actor”—
defined as “someone, or a group, who performs the security speech act” (Buzan et al., 1998, p. 40)—and second,
there is the acceptance by an audience. Both parts must be fulfilled for a successful securitization, and “the issue
is only securitized if and when the audience accepts it as such” (Buzan et al., 1998, p. 25). Success in this case
means that the issue has been removed from the normal sphere of politics and—now defined as a security issue
—the securitizing actor may take “extraordinary defensive moves” (Buzan et al., 1998, p. 204). Williams (2003)
argues that the removal of the securitized entity from the realm of normal politics abides Carl Schmitt’s
definition of politics and logic of the exception. 1

This basic formula of (securitizing actor) + (securitizing move) + (audience assent) = (successful securitization)

captures the core argument of classic formulations of Copenhagen School securitization theory. The removal of
the successfully securitized entity from the control of normal politics and approval of extraordinary measures in
response outline the Schmittian stakes of securitization theory. As an analytical tool, Copenhagen school
securitization is powerful because it offers a simple model with wide applicability (Salter, 2018)—including as
this article will show in the area of higher education (e.g., Collins, 2005; Durodie, 2016)—yet this same virtue of
the framework has been criticized, including by “Paris School” approaches to securitization, for oversimplifying
the complex reality of security construction in international politics.

Desecuritization describes the reverse process of securitization—taking an issue from the heightened discourse
of security and bringing back into the space of political deliberation. Desecuritizing moves similarly require the
assent of a relevant audience, although this would often consist of the elite group who had control over the
security policy or an audience able to influence that elite. Empirical studies of securitization and desecuritization
(e.g., Aras & Karakaya Polat, 2008; MacKenzie, 2009; Roe, 2004) have highlighted the analytical utility of
desecuritization, while conceptual analyses have theorized the relation between the two concepts (e.g., Austin &
Beaulieu-Brossard, 2018; Hansen, 2012).

Yet desecuritization is often fraught with difficulties. Salter (2008a, p. 341), for instance, notes in the case of
Canadian aviation security debates, a desecuritizing move by scientific experts—because of the uncertainty of
screening and security, the policy decisions would be necessarily political rather than neutral application of
scientific principles and should therefore be subject to political debate and accountability—failed because it did
not convince its relevant audiences. Even when successful, as Aradau argues (2004), desecuritization alone is
insufficient and must be accompanied by a commitment to emancipatory political discourse. If the project of
critical politics is to succeed, it requires first the removal from security discourse but also a firm commitment to
advocacy for political amelioration toward an emancipatory future.

In the case of emergency eLearning and the COVID-19 pandemic, the argument in terms of securitization is that
face-to-face classes was justly securitized, and that the theory of securitization helps us to observe the discursive
dynamics at play. But for there to be any possibility of emancipatory post-pandemic pedagogy, the first step
must be a concerted effort toward the desecuritization of face-to-face schooling—recalling that these efforts are
not guaranteed to be successful without collective action—once the pandemic has passed.

COVID-19: A pandemic primer

The COVID-19 pandemic grew quickly from its first emergence to a truly global phenomenon. While the
importance for the securitization of face-to-face schooling lies in the social transmission of the virus, a brief
review of the rise of the virus provides context. The first reported illness onset date for COVID-19 was
December 1, 2019, and the first hospital intake date was December 16, 2019 (Huang et al., 2020, p. 499). By
December 30, 2019, a cluster of pneumonia patients in Wuhan, China was reported to the World Health
Organization’s Beijing office (Guarner, 2020, p. 420). Clinical presentations indicated a shared viral strain of
pneumonia, which was named 2019-nCoV, or 2019 novel coronavirus (Huang et al., 2020, p. 497). The
following day, an epidemiological alert was raised by local health authorities (Huang et al., 2020, p. 498).
Exactly one month after the viral pneumonia cluster was recognized—just under two months after the first
symptoms ever caused by the virus—the World Health Organization declared a Public Health Emergency of
International Concern (Lai et al., 2020, p. 2), and on March 11, 2020, a COVID-19 pandemic (World Health
Organization, 2020). 2 The rapidity of this spread can be understood by characteristics of the virus itself.

COVID-19 has already far surpassed the number of total cases and fatalities of its closest viral comparators,
SARS and MERS. COVID-19 has a lower incident rate of serious symptoms—mortality, for example, is
estimated around 2%, compared to 9.5% for SARS and 35% for MERS (Guarner, 2020) 3 —and while this
results in a lower individual risk, there is a much greater population-level risk due to infected individuals who
are only mildly symptomatic continuing about daily life (Munster et al., 2020, p. 694). This threat is only
increased with the potential for asymptomatic transmission (Bai et al., 2020), and the lower rate of symptom
presentation among youth. One final contributing factor is the pandemic epicenter—Wuhan is a megacity of 11
million residents and a major transportation hub “home to the largest train station, biggest airport, and largest
deep-water port in central China” (Wilder-Smith et al., 2020, p. 3). Asymptomatic or mildly-symptomatic
transmission in the context of a globally-connected megacity offered a head-start to the virus compared to any
possible epicenter containment efforts.

Community transmission—that is, the spread of a virus within a certain region as opposed to travel-related
transmission—is targeted through programs of social distancing. By slowing the rate of spread within the
community, these policies help keep infection rates at a manageable level within existing healthcare
infrastructure, and allow research on treatment methods to progress so that evidence-based treatments can be
applied to individuals who fall ill (e.g., Preiser et al., 2020).
Community transmission presents a particular challenge to higher education institutions and campus life.
Network analysis of the Cornell campus, for instance, demonstrates how universities are uniquely vulnerable
spaces (Weeden & Cornwell, 2020): Not only does a single student very quickly reach the entire student body—
about two degrees of separation—but nearly all students are connected through multiple pathways such that
isolation of particular nodes does not eliminate possible indirect exposure to that area of the network. Once
community transmission begins, the closure of schools seeks to reduce the possibility that asymptomatic students
act as unidentified transmission vectors. Especially because COVID-19 exhibits fewer severe symptoms among
young people, continuation of normal schooling practices introduces a great deal of uncertainty. It is in this
context of risk mitigation, social distancing, and the particular uncertainty of transmission risk amongst the
student-age population that the securitization of face-to-face schooling must be understood.

Emergency eLearning and the securitization of face-to-face schooling

The COVID-19 response is not the first time that emergency eLearning programs have been considered as
appropriate crisis-response measures. A similar strategy was observed in Fall 2009, where 67% of H1N1
contingency plans involved substitution of online classes for face-to-face classes (Allen & Seaman, 2010, p. 9).
The comparators for COVID-19 also extend to other forms of natural disasters. Hurricane Katrina’s landfall in
August 2005 physically damaged 27 colleges in the Gulf region and more in Texas, causing damage that made it
impossible for on-campus courses (Meyer & Wilson, 2011). 4 What followed was a rapid-deployment of online
learning called the “Sloan Semester,” named for the sponsoring Alfred Sloan Foundation; a consortium of 153
colleges and universities reacted quickly to create an online course catalogue of over 1300 courses (Lorenzo,
2008). Then—as now—there was ample justification for alternative arrangements.

Assembling a sample pool of university declarations for the purposes of establishing regularities was the first
step of in the examination of emergency eLearning protocols. The sample was drawn from the top-25
universities in the United States, as ranked by Times Higher Education/Wall Street Journal (2019). Every
university declared emergency eLearning policies (100%). While these changes were most commonly
announced by the university President (72%), announcements were also made by the Chancellor (8%) or
provost/interim provost (20%). Announcements typically referenced protecting the community (84%) but also
referred to managing uncertainty (32%) and—less often—threat response (8%). All announcements took place
between March 6 and 13, with the majority (60%) happening on March 10/11.

With the outlying case of Stanford—whose earlier response was likely influenced by two students living in on-
campus residence going into self-isolation (Drell, 2020)—the announcement pattern indicates a fairly normal
distribution over the week. While there was some variability in the rhetorical framing and precise timing, the
announcements all tended toward the same result—in light of COVID-19, face-to-face schooling could not
continue.

The announcements at Harvard and Yale are typical of the selection, and given their role as example-setting
universities for higher education world-wide, it is worth to provide closer analysis. Their declarations highlight
how the enactment of emergency eLearning protocols represents a move to securitize face-to-face schooling at
those institutions. In the case of Harvard, Lawrence Bacow (2020) begins by presenting COVID-19 as a force
that could have been expected to change lives: “Like all of you, I have been intently following reports of
Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) and considering the many ways in which its future course might alter
my life and the lives of those closest to me.” This establishes the existential nature of this general threat—
COVID-19—vis-à-vis the relevant audience (the Harvard community). After noting that “a group of extremely
dedicated people has been working literally around the clock to respond to the challenges posed by COVID-19,”
he introduces “major near-term changes” that are designed to “limit exposure to the disease among members of
the community.” These changes are major, and fundamentally change the ordinary way that classes take place
by invoking extraordinary measures.

The first change that Bacow (2020) introduces is that “we will begin transitioning to virtual instruction for
graduate and undergraduate classes.” While the general threat is the impact of COVID-19 on the Harvard
community (and the world writ large), it is specifically the class experience that is taken out of the ordinary
face-to-face realm and displaced into a “secure” format of eLearning. This presentation fits the key elements of
securitization theory as the securitizing actor has identified a threat to the community, and is declaring the
suspension of normal life, replaced swiftly with emergency contingency measures. That the statement addresses
a relevant audience is clarified through Bacow’s insistence that the measures are necessary “to protect the health
of the community.” Face-to-face classes are framed by the threat rhetoric of community transmission and the
threat of COVID-19, demanding a shift from the normal state of affairs to extraordinary action. Bacow’s ( 2020)
statement represents a clear securitizing move from the outset, and the acceptance of emergency eLearning by
the Harvard community suggests that the securitization was ultimately successful.

The original announcement at Yale (Salovey, 2020a) framed the issue in a somewhat lighter tone, referencing
“the challenges posed by COVID-19” rather than Harvard’s life-altering framing of the pandemic. Peter Salovey
(2020a) similarly invokes “scientific and medical evidence” as well as “expert advice of dedicated faculty and
medical professionals” in justifying the decision-making process leading to emergency eLearning. But four days
later, after a Yale student had received a confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis, the tone changed. In Salovey’s
(2020b) subsequent statement, the rhetoric of securitization is clearly present—and in a particular way the
Schmittian logic of the exception that Williams (2003) argues is always inherent in the securitizing move:

I write to inform you of important decisions regarding the remainder of the spring semester and remind you of
measures we must take in the interest of the health and safety of our community … 

The increasing intensity of the COVID-19 pandemic has required that we revisit decisions that seemed proactive
when first announced just days before. On March 10, I let you know that through at least April 5 … we would
hold classes online using Zoom, Canvas, and other digital tools. It was my hope that we might see a return to
normalcy before the end of the semester.

With regret, and in consultation with Yale’s medical and public-health experts and other university leaders, I
have concluded that an early return to the classroom is not possible. The clearest relevant lesson we have drawn
from our best-informed, wisest sources is this: pandemics are defeated by bold measures that blunt the curve of
the rate of infection through dramatic reduction of intense human contact.

I have therefore decided that the measures we announced on March 10—keeping students off campus and
moving teaching online—will apply through the full spring semester … 

The general threat is clearly identified—COVID-19—and the justification of the actions to be taken—expert
advice—is repeated throughout the statement. The introductory framing here again references “measures we
must take” to defend against an existential threat against “the health and safety of our community.” Salovey
(2020b) draws attention to the extraordinary nature of the necessary actions by stating that “pandemics are
defeated by bold measures [emphasis added],” but in the same paragraph draws the link between a “return to the
classroom” and the kind of “intense human contact” that the community must be made secure from.

In addition to the secure-versus-ordinary interaction binary, the Schmittian logic of norm and exception ( 2005) is
reified through this passage in two ways. First, because the resumption of face-to-face classes marks an
impossible “return to normalcy” due to worsening pandemic conditions, Salovey (2020b) must extend the
emergency—that is, the exceptional—eLearning provisions announced earlier. Necessity demands exceptional
measures, and normalcy becomes simply impossible. But it is also important to notice the more authoritative
voice taken in the second letter—not only is the first person “I” used thirteen times, as opposed to six in the first
instance, but the language constructs a stronger image for the office of Yale’s President. Beyond pleasantries, 5
the difference in usage of the first-person is that there is a gravity in the presentation of emergency measures in
the second statement (“I have concluded,” “I have therefore decided”) that does not exist in the first (“I describe
actions”). Rather than presenting the emergency measures as a messenger, the second statement also reaffirms
the President’s position as a securitizing actor.
Face-to-face schooling is constructed as a specific threat from which the communities must be protected, and
emergency eLearning is the security measure proposed to protect the community. The securitizing moves invoke
not only the authority of public health officials who warn about the dangers of community transmission, but also
reify the right of the university official to enact exceptional measures. The current consensus among infectious
disease specialists, epidemiologists, and public health officials would seem to indicate that the decision of these
universities to limit face-to-face classes as a means of reducing close-proximity interactions is justifiable. But
the lesson of securitization theory is that the particular construction of these classes as security threats is a social
process, not a deterministic response to objective conditions. The prevalence of references to protecting the
community among declarations of emergency eLearning, and the clear mobilization of emergency and security
rhetoric in the declarations from Harvard and Yale offer further evidence that face-to-face schooling has been
securitized in light of the COVID-19 crisis.

The identification of the social construction of face-to-face classes as a security threat is important not only to
understand the way that we reach the state of emergency eLearning, but also grants insights into how a transition
out from emergency eLearning might occur. The reification of the authority of the President’s office in both the
Harvard and Yale examples seems to suggest that it will be the prerogative of that office holder to lift the
suspension. Surely such an announcement will invoke rhetorical frames of confidence, public health and safety,
and assure preparedness against a possible second wave, but the authority has clearly been (rein)vested in the
office of the President. The decision to move beyond emergency eLearning will not be announced by local
public health officials or voted on by university communities. Therefore, even if we accept the decision to
transition to emergency eLearning as the proper response, securitization theory teaches us that the mechanism by
which it was enacted curtails the possibility for any kind of democratic deliberation on how we might return
from emergency eLearning—much less how we might seek out an improved and more emancipatory educational
system.

While the tendency for emergency measures to be normalized has been a conclusion of theoretical interventions
in critical International Relations scholarship (e.g., Salter, 2008b), the need for the future desecuritization of
face-to-face schooling is already empirically evident. To be precise, the normalization of emergency eLearning
does not refer to the decision to extend limitations placed upon face-to-face schooling through the fall should a
second wave of COVID-19 threaten the Northern hemisphere—in which case improving quality of online
options may be a necessary step (Lederman, 2020). Rather, the normalization of emergency eLearning refers to
strategies that frame the widespread adoption of online learning under COVID-19 as a pathway to a new normal
rather than an emergency response.

In a reflection on the spread of asynchronous eLearning titled “Why Online Education Will Attain Full Scale,”
Sener (2010, pp. 9–10) highlights natural and manmade disasters as important opportunities for the spread of
eLearning through the “Wildcard Effect,” and eLearning advocates in search of public sector austerity and
private sector profit have already started promoting the success of emergency eLearning as justification for
normalization of these crisis-management protocols. When interviewed by Chronicle of Higher Education
columnist Goldie Blumenstyk (2020) about the emergency eLearning transition, the owner of Noodle (a
transition-to-eLearning company) suggested that “these events could prompt colleges to stop distinguishing
between online and classroom programs.” With that distinction gone, the administrative choice between
logistical and physical limitations of face-to-face hurdles and increased tuition revenues through massive online
courses could change the equation. And it is not only higher education’s future that universities choices are
shaping.

In the province of Ontario, Canada, the recently-elected conservative government led by Doug Ford introduced
mandatory eLearning in secondary schools, in an effort to cut expenses in the publicly-funded education sector.
In light of recent developments, political commentators supporting the Ford government’s austerity measures
have seized on the example of Harvard instituting emergency eLearning as justification for mandatory eLearning
at a larger scale (Lilley, 2020). With increased pressures from both for-profit educational technology
corporations and governments seeking to implement eLearning as a means of slashing education budgets, there
is a sense of inevitability of efforts to normalize emergency eLearning. It would be more surprising if these
efforts weren’t made.

Toward a post-pandemic pedagogy

It is difficult to predict what the educational landscape will look like after COVID-19 passes, in part because of
the magnitude of the community transmission threat posed by campus interactions (e.g., Weeden & Cornwell,
2020). Indeed, discussions are ongoing at many institutions about extension of emergency eLearning through
Fall 2020 in order to avoid the Northern Hemisphere’s possible second wave of COVID-19. But efforts to
normalize emergency eLearning measures precisely because post-pandemic pedagogy seems unthinkable rob the
education sector of the opportunity for open discourse on how the sector can be emancipatory for all students.
The normalization of emergency eLearning would mean the normalization of a form of education that
perpetuates structural inequalities of class, race, and support (Farhadi, 2019) that schools should allow students
to break free from.

Highlighting the danger of normalizing emergency eLearning is not the same as condemning all forms of online
learning. Indeed, one might argue that there is a different type of emancipation that eLearning offers. Bracketing
the digital divide, the radical portability of eLearning may increase access to education in rural communities. For
individuals who are unable to attend a traditional full-time face-to-face school due to personal or financial
circumstances, the flexibility of asynchronous eLearning may provide wider access. And even within traditional
higher education institutions, hybrid or blended forms may help improve the quality of face-to-face teaching by
moving content delivery online and focusing in-person sessions on active learning (e.g., Bowen, 2012).
Especially in the United States, optional eLearning might curb the burden of exorbitant tuition fees that makes
higher education inaccessible for many individuals.

But for any of these discussions of post-pandemic pedagogy are to proceed, face-to-face schooling must be
desecuritized. The normalization of emergency eLearning, or justifications of widespread and mandatory
eLearning protocols on grounds of crisis response precludes the very possibility of productive debate on the
value of education. The lesson of securitization theory for emergency eLearning is that this important debate
simply cannot proceed in the realm of security, and the issue of face-to-face schooling must be brought back to a
desecuritized space where discourse is possible.

At the same time as securitization theory informs our understanding of emergency eLearning, the latter poses
important challenges for the former. First, the sharp binary in securitization theory between “normal politics”
and the discourse of “security” obscures in this case the multiple inequalities and barriers that exist in the
imperfect “normal” situation. Similar to prior critiques of desecuritization as insufficient, one must ask what
inequalities and barriers are reified when emergencies lead to nostalgia for the prior normal condition. Second,
the securitized state of affairs may preclude the enactment of outcomes of open debate, the many commentaries
on emergency eLearning seems to suggest that minor interventions—what we might call a form of policy
tinkering—do appear to be possible within the securitized framework. Though insufficient for emancipatory
change, how does tinkering within a securitized situation alter that suboptimal form-of-life? Perhaps the
continued response to emergency eLearning can offer future empirical material to puzzle out these questions.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the editor and reviewers of Contemporary Security Policy for their most insightful
comments shared in the process of revising the article. An earlier version of the argument received helpful
comments from Veronica Kitchen, Heather Smith, and Tanya Irwin from the WIIS-Toronto Twitter Conference,
as well as Andrew Heffernan.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author. The views and opinions expressed in this article are
the work of the author and do not necessarily reflect an official position of the Algonquin & Lakeshore CDSB.

Notes on contributor

Michael P. A. Murphy is a SSHRC doctoral fellow in International Relations and Political Theory at the
University of Ottawa, and an associate member of the University of Ottawa Research Unit in the Scholarship of
Teaching and Learning. He serves as an elected school board trustee, Editorial Assistant at Security Dialogue,
and member-at-large for ISA’s Active Learning in International Affairs Section. He has published over a dozen
articles on International Relations theory, political theory, and pedagogy, appearing in International Relations,
the Journal of International Political Theory, Critical Studies on Security, the Journal of Political Science
Education, and elsewhere. His work can be found at: http://bit.ly/37NJMkZ

Notes

1 For the logic of the exception, see Schmitt (2005); for the definition of politics as friend/enemy, see Schmitt
(2007). However, it is important to recall that the shared examination of exceptional politics does not mean that
securitization and emergency exceptionalism are the same phenomenon—on this point, see Murphy (2019).

2 The name “COVID-19” officially replaced “2019-nCoV” one month earlier, on 11 February (Guarner, 2020, p.
420).

3 The case fatality rate is a moving average highly sensitive to the number of the poor identification of
asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic individuals. Fauci et al. (2020) note that because of this uncertainty “the
case fatality rate may be considerably less than 1%” (p. 1).

4 Johnson et al. (2006) share the story of Delgado Community College, where 20 of 25 buildings had significant
water damage.

5 E.g., “I write this letter,” “I ask you to take care of yourselves,” and similar.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a stress test for education systems around the world. Due to the crisis, 190 countries
have faced complete or partial school closures and as a result, more than 1.7 billion students have been affected.
With hundreds of millions of learners forced to stay home, education policy makers are working to ensure that
classes continue, and that the most vulnerable don’t get left behind.  Technology is one of the most critical tools
to support remote learning when learners need to remain outside of classrooms.

With many different approaches being taken by countries worldwide, the COVID-19 crisis is an opportunity for
policy makers to learn from each other and co-operate to mitigate the effects of the pandemic and maybe even
“build back better”.

The current global spread of the Covid-19 virus means that many schools and teachers around the world are
looking into how they can continue to teach their pupils remotely if their schools need to close for a limited time.

With the outbreak of the Coronavirus being declared a pandemic by the World Health Organisation, people
worldwide are facing a major challenge. The Coronavirus has significantly affected all of our lives, but it is also
challenging our ability to adapt and be resilient.
We are in a state of emergency and must react with different ways of working, shopping, learning, and
communicating. Online shopping and social networks are not new to us, nor is distance learning. However,
COVID-19 is reviving the need to explore online teaching and learning opportunities.

More than 300 million students worldwide are having their education disrupted by the spread of the Coronavirus.
Schools and universities haven’t faced this level of disruption in generations, but unlike any time in the past, we
have the ability to continue education even when schools close. In this uncertain environment, it’s important that
learning continues, even if it can’t happen in person. That’s why we’re providing access to expert faculty, best
practices, and other online learning resources for people who are studying, teaching, or working remotely. We’ll
be updating this site regularly with even more helpful resources.

Digital learning management systems, communication tools, and e-learning platforms are playing a crucial role
during this pandemic. Software and apps can help learning providers manage, plan, deliver, and track the
learning process.

Although 63% expected established, prestigious universities to be offering full degrees online by 2030, only
24% thought that the electronic versions would be more popular than traditional campus-based degrees (‘How
will technology reshape the university by 2030,’ Features, 27 September 2018).

The pandemic spread of Novel Coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, has significantly disrupted every aspects
of human life, including education. The alarming spread of the virus caused a havoc in the educational system
forcing educational institutions to shut down. According to a UNESCO report, 1.6 billion children across 191
countries have been severely impacted by the temporary closure of the educational institutions. In order to
mitigate the impact, educational institutions have responded to the closure differently in different contexts with a
range of options for students, teachers, managers and parents, depending on the resources, both materials and
human, available to them. Most of the options have to incorporate innovative technologies (e.g., digital and
mobile technologies combined with traditional technologies such as radio and TV) in order to provide at least
some form of educational continuity. As distance and online education is dependent on technological facilities,
including internet and Wi-Fi, the discrepancies that exist in their availability are widening the gaps in access and
quality of education. This article investigates the impact of COVID-19 on the Nepalese education system, with a
focus on the school education. Based on the published documents, reports and news commentaries, the article
provides a critical analysis and reflection on the opportunities and challenges the pandemic has presented for the
technolization of the education systems. The findings indicate that the pandemic has had serious impacts on
students’ learning and well-being, and that it potentially widens the gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged
children in their equitable access to quality education. Furthermore, the findings suggest that Nepal has
formulated a number of ICT and education related policies since 2000; however, the challenges it is
experiencing in the advent of Covid-19 are mainly due to its faulty implementation strategies and inability to
implement those policies. A discussion of the challenges and their potential managing strategies is provided in
the final section of the article.