Future of Higher Education

Beatrix Fűzi, Zsuzsanna Géring and Eszter Szendrei-Pál published their new article in Educational Review, entitled Changing expectations related to digitalisation and socialisation in higher education. Horizon scanning of pre- and post-COVID-19 discourses.

 Fűzi and colleagues studied the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the expectations regarding higher education with horizon scanning. Analysing academic and semi-academic discourses they focused on the changing expectations of the most important higher education actors on higher education itself. The researchers paid special attention to expectations in connection with digitalisation and socialisation and their interconnectedness.

Fűzi, Géring and Szendrei-Pál’s findings suggest that expectations regarding digitalisation in Central-Eastern European higher education were high even before the pandemic. Most of these demands were met in the very first few weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, the rapid transition to digital mode of education heavily affected higher education actors, as it highlighted some of higher education’s hidden potentials and resources, but also brought to light other kind of expectations that were not in the limelight before. Namely, the need for socialisation in higher education that became even more important due to social distancing and general confinement experienced in other areas of life during the pandemic.

The researchers present the found expectations, the changes in the discourse around them in the last few years as well as their interconnectedness.

You can find the article HERE.