K-12 Education Responses to COVID-19: A Comparison of Five Countries

Abstract

The global COVID-19 pandemic has left an indelible impression on the world of education, where many countries had to approach this issue by conducting emergency remote teaching. These education responses to the pandemic, however, seemed to differ by country. In order to explore how countries responded to the pandemic in terms of K12 education, this study investigated five countries, the Philippines, Egypt, Korea, Japan and the United States, through document analysis. The findings revealed several similarities and differences, such as the Philippines, Egypt and Japan initially struggling to implement remote emergency teaching due to the lack of ICT infrastructure while Korea and the United States swiftly transitioned to emergency remote teaching due to their readily available ICT infrastructure. These similarities and differences can be possibly explained by the Human Development Index (HDI) and Hofstede’s 6 cultural dimensions of each country.