COVID-19 Crisis, Impacts on Catholic Schools, and Potential Responses: Introduction

The COVID-19 crisis has generated unprecedented challenges for Catholic schools and their students, as is the case for other school networks. First, school closures have affected 9 in 10 school-aged children globally, with risks for the children’s ability to learn when the schools are closed, and later return to school when the crisis subsides. Second, the economic recession generated by the crisis will not only affect children, but also in some cases the ability of Catholic and other private schools to maintain their enrollment, and thereby their financial sustainability, at least in countries where the schools do not benefit from government support. A wide range of policy notes are being written about potential responses to the crisis by national and international organizations, think tanks, and civil society organizations. Few of those analyses consider specifically Catholic schools and their students, but some do, and the others are still relevant. It is likely that much of this wide-ranging analytical effort is not reaching Catholic school leaders, as the focus is typically on policy dialogue with governments. The main aim of this introduction and the two-part paper that follows is to provide a synthesis of some of those materials so that they become more accessible to Catholic school teachers and leaders