The greatest pandemic in over 100 years has raised many questions about its longer-term effects on young people. One of the most prominent concerns has focused on learning losses. Most of the world’s children have missed at least a few weeks of regular schooling, some young people have missed an entire year or more, remote learning alternatives have often proved problematic, on-site learning with physical distancing has sometimes diminished or disrupted the regular learning experience, and millions of young people fell off the educational radar altogether, when their schools shut down.

Many have claimed that these losses are resulting in serious shortfalls or losses in skill and competence in literacy and mathematics, depressed test scores, widened achievement gaps, gaps in knowledge needed for access to post-secondary education and employment, loss of lifelong income, increased social inequalities, and damage to the global economy. In response, they recommend summer learning programs, extra school hours, and additional tutoring and special education support to help students catch up and close achievement gaps.

The learning loss narrative has a number of flaws, however. Some children actually made gains in learning by having more opportunities to learn and play outside, by being relieved of high school examination preparation, and by being shielded from threats and harms such as in-person bullying.

Second, learning losses and catch -up requirements are typically calculated in relation to pre-pandemic benchmarks of mainly tested literacy and mathematics that are really somewhat arbitrary norms or averages of proficiency for their time, rather than absolute standards that must be retrieved at all costs.

Third, learning gaps have widened, in part, because of learning gains among some young people in more privileged or affluent families, who have gained support, encouragement and even a bit of competitive nudging from on-hand family members during virtual school.

Fourth, the narrative of lost learning also tends to focus on losses in easily tested core skills that form part of students’ learning experience, but that are far from other aspects of it such as deeper learning, problem-solving, social and emotional learning, learning in nature, digital proficiency, and learning to be democratic citizens.

The more important priority is addressing the fact that millions of children became disengaged from their learning during COVID-19 – tuning out when the online teacher was talking, turning off their devices, or walking away from learning altogether. After the pandemic, our first priority must be to re-engage all these young people with their education, and, for the first time, to engage upwards of the 20-30% of students who, according to OECD data, are already often disengaged from school.

Drawing on 7 years of research with teachers seeking to increase student engagement in 5 US States, this presentation describes 5 paths of engagement revealed by the research that can help achieve learning and success for all students. These paths are: cultivating creativity and magic; infusing the curriculum with meaning and purpose; developing stronger senses of belonging; empowering students in their own learning; and building experiences of focus and mastery.

Keywords: Student Engagement, Teaching, Pandemic, Learning Loss

AI has made great advancements during the last decade. Everyone can experience AI such as robo advisors, self-driving cars, smart speakers, and digital assistants. AI has changed the work and life of everyone and it will change everything in the future. Education will not be an exception. AI will revolutionize how people learn and how teachers and schools provide education. In this talk we review the recent progress of AI technologies and industries and discuss how they will reshape the educational landscape in the future.

Keywords: AI, Future

In an increasingly uncertain world, hit by countless security, economic and other crises, and most notably the most recent crisis, COVID-19, remains one of the major challenges for a resilient world as defined by Sustainable Development Goal 4: "to ensure equal access to quality education for all and to promote lifelong learning opportunities". Indeed, over the past two decades, javascript:closeLayer()the world has been confronted with an increasing number of crises, natural disasters and epidemics, the worst of which was the COVID-19 pandemic. This pandemic continues to threaten the continuity of education and impact on its quality and equity, as it has resulted in the closure of schools and universities and has deprived more than 1.6 billion learners worldwide in more than 191 countries, not to mention the disparities that exist between men and women and girls and boys. For example, 23.8 million children may drop out of school due to lack of resources and women account for two-thirds of the 750 million adults lacking basic literacy skills, a situation that is likely to be exacerbated by the current health crisis.
In the face of such a crisis, the solution is EDUCATION. To this end, the major actors, more specifically the States and Inter-Governmental Organizations, continue to work towards alternative education, in this case distance learning, with an emphasis on the use of digital technology. However, this is not without consequences, if learning through digital means has allowed, in the first instance, to ease only part of the problem, the use and access for all to these technologies remain a challenge and are one of the origins of school dropouts.
On the other hand, in some countries of the world where distance learning has remained under-exploited until now, there are recurrent difficulties for both teachers and pupils, which are added to the problems of training for the two bodies mentioned previously.
Faced with this crisis and its disastrous consequences for our future, we are obliged to continue our efforts, to take up the major challenges and to determine appropriate solutions for quality learning, accessible to all in times of crisis.

Key words : Reconceptualization of Education, Right to Education, Equal Access to Quality Education, Digital Technology in Education

The pandemic has exposed a global vulnerability as well as many forms and experiences of violence (political, economic affective) that have expanded social injustices around the world. This talk draws on Judith Butler’s recent work on The Force of Nonviolence to advance an argument for a nonviolent ethic and politics in education. This argument complements existing educational efforts of foregrounding nonviolence on inner reflexive work with approaches that highlight notions of nonviolence as both subjective and collective resistance to the norms and structures of social injustice and violence. It is argued that Butler’s theorization of ethics and (non)violence can serve as a productive entry point, especially in the aftermath of the pandemic, into enriching our understandings of ethical and political responses to different forms of violence in education, especially in renewing pedagogies for nonviolence. In particular, the construal of nonviolence as enmeshed with ethics and affect is noteworthy for an educational approach that envisions to promote social justice for two important reasons: first, it highlights how the ethical and the political are intertwined, just as violence and nonviolence are entangled, hence reframing understanding of nonviolence in education is founded in the claim that we are all from the beginning enmeshed in both resistance and complicity to social injustice. Second, an understanding of nonviolence as an interruption or suspension of norms that have been taken for granted before the pandemic emphasizes the need to take into consideration how affective relations may be renewed in education, not only on the basis of ethical appeals but also on political terms.

Keywords: Nonviolence, violence, affect, ethics, social justice, education, pedagogy.