COVID-19 Pandemic and the Fault Lines of Citizenship Education

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic is indeed a once-in-a-lifetime emergency. While it seems that the end is nigh, there is also a renewed talk of the looming fourth wave spurred by the mutated Delta, Delta+, and other variants. The pandemic has made several fault lines visible in almost all societies. These include but are not limited to the tentativeness of our knowledge (especially science), the precariousness of our health systems, and failings of the educational systems, particularly citizenship education. While the COVID-19 pandemic will be long remembered as the health crisis of our times;we contend that the pandemic is also an educational crisis. Results of neoliberal neglect of citizenship-related education are now apparent in form of unethical, unjust, racist, and socially irresponsible attitudes and behaviors of individuals, collectives, and states. At the individual level, these are obvious in the irresponsible behaviors that endanger the lives of fellow citizens. At the community level, the failure of citizenship education is evident in vaccination inequality both within and between societies. Finally, at the level of international community, one can see vaccination nationalism, and politically and economically motivated vaccination diplomacy as markers of unethical citizenship.