THE IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON

GLOBAL HIGHER EDUCATION

Dirk Van Damme

OECD/EDU
SOME BASICS ON THE GLOBAL
COVID-19 PANDEMIC

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 The COVID-19 pandemic: what to expect?

• Timing, spread, intensity, etc. of the pandemic vary a lot

among countries
– Impact very uneven
– Post-pandemic recovery will also be very uneven
– Precise impact of confinement policies still unclear, but
early adopters (Australia, Austria, Norway, Denmark) seem
to enjoy some benefit
– Some late adopters (US, UK, etc.) seem to be suffering,
others (Sweden, Netherlands) are still to be seen
– Statistics only partially reliable and not very comparable
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The COVID-19 pandemic: what to expect?

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 The COVID-19 pandemic: what to expect?

• Timing, spread, intensity, etc. of the pandemic vary a lot

among countries
• Some worrisome signs add to uncertainties
– A second and third wave of infections to be expected
– New mutations might increase the infectiousness and
mortality of the virus
– Immunity after infection seems to be limited (people
reported with second infection)

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 The COVID-19 pandemic: what to expect?

• Timing, spread, intensity, etc. of the pandemic vary a lot

among countries
• Some worrisome signs ad to uncertainties
• Some positive views in need of confirmation
– Very rapid progress on development of drugs and vaccine
– Because of underreporting of cases, ‘infection fatality ratio’
could actually be much lower than the assumed 1 to 2%;
according to recent study even as low as 1 in 270
– Calculating surplus deaths leads to different evaluation
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 Health policy responses

• After initial confusion and contrasting policy options

(isolation, testing, confinement, ‘herd immunity’) now
emerging consensus on best policy mix
• Diverging policy options in early stages now determine rate
of infection, hospitalization and death toll
• Large-scale testing seems to be hardest bottleneck, but will
be solved soon with new, quicker, cheaper, reliable tests
• Policy coordination both within and between countries is
very weak
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 Exit strategies

• Many countries are working on various exit scenarios, but

these prove to be more difficult than introducing measures
• Capacity of the health care system to absorb and treat
patients with severe symptoms is critical factor
• Difficult political discussion on the economic cost of surplus
deaths as part of balancing economy and health
• Exit will be stepwise, extending over a long time span,
following an ‘accordion-type’ pattern
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 Economic impact is enormous

• Impact of COVID-19 and containment measures on

economic output will be enormous, bigger than the 2008
financial crisis
• Estimates of GDP loss around 2% per month of
containment
• Real risk of global recession
• Service sector heavily hit
• Unemployment impact still difficult to assess
• How fast will economy catch up?
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Economic impact is enormous

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 Global impact will be severe and long-lasting

• Severe blow to globalisation: production, supply chains, trade,

multilateralism, travel, tourism,…
– International student mobility and mobility of research staff shrinking
dramatically
• Nationalist/protectionist tendencies very powerful, with probably
long-lasting effects, even after the crisis
– Seemingly strong multilateral frameworks and organisations (EU,
Euro-zone) are put to a very severe stress-test
• The rise of China in the global arena gets a serious setback
– Attempts to cover up, suspicion of failing laboratory security,
suspicion of serious underreporting, silencing researchers and
doctors, etc. leads to dramatic decrease in international trust 11
 Social, personal, well-being

• Huge negative impact on equity: both crisis, policy

measures and consequences amplify inequalities
• Confinement very hard for families living in poverty, poor
housing conditions, bad health and other vulnerabilities
• Psychological impact on individuals still unknown, but
probably severe mental health impact, stress in
households, increase in child abuse and intra-family
violence

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IMPACT ON UNIVERSITIES

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 Immediate disruption in education

• Estimate that 20,000 HEIs closed down, affecting learning

opportunities of 200,000+ students worldwide
• Impressive switch to distance education, online learning, e-
learning, and mixed-modes educational delivery.
• Very negative impact on equity: disadvantaged students
particularly hit
• Disruption in assessments and end-of-year examinations
disrupts study progression, graduation, learning trajectories, etc.
• Increased flexibility as part of institutional responses

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 Financial impact

• As stream of international students is drying up, institutions

dependent on fee-paying students will suffer very much
– Mainly UK (£6.9bn), Australia, NZ
– But also impact on European countries: NL, Sweden,
Switzerland, Germany, France
• Indirect impact because of fiscal crisis
– US public universities immediately
– Many other countries when recession will unfold
• Compensation by stimulus packages still unclear
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 Staff

• Immediate measures taken by universities: laying-off

staff on temporary contracts
– Often young, promising research staff
– Disinvesting in young researchers will have severe impact
on longer-term research potential by cutting off their talent
pipeline

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 Students

• Overall student enrolment will increase

– Like in any crisis, students are postponing graduation to avoid
entering a labour market in crisis
– Many students will not be able to finalize important parts of the
curriculum (field research, internships, etc.) needed for graduation
– Enrolment in universities is a better option than being unemployed
• Higher education students are perceived to be high-risk
contaminators
• In many European countries, looming prospects of stagnating
or declining public funding with increased student enrolment
and teaching work load
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 International students

• Huge drop in Chinese student enrolment

• Asian students look to regional opportunities (Korea,
Malaysia, Singapore) instead of US, UK or Europe
• Restrictions on travel, immigration, visa etc. will remain
in place for a long time, cutting off student mobility
• Admission procedures seriously disrupted
• Also intra-European mobility will be affected

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 Teaching and learning

• Capacity of many institutions to replace face-to-face

delivery by various models of distance education should
be praised
• Yet, many mistakes are made. Need for comprehensive
evaluation of real-world experiments.
• Need to consider long-term integration of e-learning in
multimodal delivery; the ‘old normal’ will not come back
• Still, lot of work to be done in assessment, evaluation,
study career guidance, etc.
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 Impact on global landscape

• The COVID-19 pandemic will reinforce hierarchies in the

global higher education landscape…
– Institutions with large endowments or other financial
buffers will be more resilient than vulnerable ones
• …but will also shake up the familiar landscape
– Losers: US, UK, Australia
– Winners: Europe (Germany, France, Sweden,
Netherlands, Switzerland)
– Uncertain: Asian universities
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 Impact on global landscape: outlooks

• UK: after Brexit, uncertainty about access to EU research

funding, COVID-19 is another heavy blow
– Huge losses because of departure of fee-paying international st
– Beyond the Russell Group, many universities will suffer, not only
financially, but also in quality
• US: economic recession, political instability
– With many states in dire budgetary conditions, many public
universities will suffer
– Top private research universities will cope, but lower-ranked for-
profits will also suffer
– Top research labs dependant on Asian PhD and post-docs
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 Impact on global landscape: outlooks

• Germany & Nordic countries (incl NL?):

– Effective containment and mitigation strategies, reopening
of schools and universities pretty soon
– Stable public funding, excellent research policies, well-
functioning labour markets, minimal impact of economic
recession
– Continuous rise of universities in global rankings will be
confirmed and reinforced

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 Thank you!
dirk.vandamme@oecd.org
www.oecd.org/edu
www.oecd.org/coronavirus
twitter @VanDammeEDU

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