Online Education During COVID-19 and Beyond: An Introduction

TheCOVID-19 COVID-19 pandemicCovid-19, pandemic foundEducation during COVID-19 all of us unprepared and affected negatively many areas of our lives, education included. At a global level, there were both similarities and disparities between countries or even regions in the same country. Some were more prepared than others to adjust the offer of educational services to the students and help professors and studentsStudents cope in that stressful context. Online educationOnline education became a necessity during the imposed restrictionsRestrictions for social isolation, but also a challengeChallenge for the infrastructure of schools and universities all over the world. Before the pandemicPandemic, most educational institutionsEducational institutions used online education in addition to face-to-face educationFace-to-face education, but afterwards, they moved completely to an online system for which managers in these institutions, professors or studentsStudents were not prepared. This volume started with our desire to better understand how different countries reacted to the challengeChallenge and to learn from their experience. Online education has its benefits and we are hopeful that, despite the initial reason, this form of education has an important potential for developmentDevelopment.