A Qualitative Case Study of Gulf Coast Countries’ e-Learning Policies in the Era of COVID-19

Abstract

Long before the COVID-19 pandemic, there had been numerous disruptions of learning in recent history. In addition, educational systems are in crisis due to low-quality learning in terms of student outcomes in STEM fields, limited digital instructional resources for teacher training, and generally limited resources in low income countries.  However, as of April 2020, nearly 85% of students worldwide were out of school; that is 1.6 billion children kept home due to school closures in 180 countries. This paper explores how the Gulf Coast Countries (GCC) reacted to the disruption of education in order to understand the deeper issues of the rules and operations of educational systems and to provide recommendations to improve current education policies.

The COVID 19 pandemic has significantly affected day-to-day life in general and the learning setting in particular; this comes with temporarily closing schools, shutting down different campuses and learning institutions to maintain social distancing as has been advised by the national public health institutes and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The new health measures have been forced on the world due to the spread of the novel coronavirus. Most schools have integrated different types of technologies as an alternative method to facilitate the learning process.