Phronesis: Deliberative Judgement as a Key Competence in the Post-Covid Educational Environment

ABSTRACT

The global Covid19 pandemic which began in early 2020 is one of the most socially disruptive events to have occurred since the Second World War. It has left a profound mark on the institutions of society, including those charged with education, and its effects will be felt for many years. In this paper, we discuss some of the effects that public health policies have had on the practice of teaching, learning and assessment in the United Kingdom. We review at some of the literature on how current students have coped with the experience of education during Covid and look at potential difficulties that new students may now face when entering university. We suggest that the concept of phronesis, that is practical wisdom or prudential judgement, which can also be thought of as the faculty for making deliberative and evaluative judgements about courses of action, will be a crucial element of any recovery pedagogy since the problems faced are context-dependent and generally involve finding the most effective solutions among a range of options. © 2022 IEEE.