GIRES, the Global Institute for Research Education & Scholarship based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, committed to creating a welcoming space for discussion and collaboration, in its new conference seeks to explore the social, cultural and economic impact of virtual education in our time of pandemic and beyond.

Technology and culture now confront each other with unprecedented force as schools at all levels must deal with the demands of distance learning and teaching in a time of pandemic. We wish to examine key questions and seek viable answers on how the pandemic has altered education and how its impact will affect the quality of education now and in the post Covid-19 era.

The challenges are obvious but the solutions and outcomes are not clear. We wish to explore how the age-old humanism of teaching and learning has become obsolete in our digital age and understand whether the more efficient and less-costly ways to deliver knowledge and skills can benefit private and public, institutional and individual needs. Has the temporary yet long-term closure of schools and universities saved lives while damaging the transmission of skills that only the knowledge industry can provide? At what cost and benefit have schools and universities transformed in-class courses into screen-to-screen?

We aim at exploring the impact of pandemic on education, on students and teachers and parents and the knowledge industry in general to understand if technologically-enhanced remote teaching and learning will be here to stay in the post-pandemic era for the many or the few? What lessons do we draw from the present situation? Where does the public education and private technology partnership go from here?