Education in emergency: Lessons learned about school management practices and digital technologies

Abstract

In a period strongly marked by constraints and abrupt societal changes, school leaders had to manage the pandemic crisis, guide changes, and find new solutions to respond to the demands of increasingly digitalised schools. In this context, a study was carried out to identify the main challenges faced by school leaders in Portugal and how digital technologies (DTs) were used by school leaders to address those challenges. From the methodological point of view, a questionnaire with closed and open questions on DTs during the COVID-19 pandemic was submitted to Portuguese school leaders between November 2020 and March 2021. Based on a descriptive statistical analysis of the closed questions and the content analysis of the open answers of 145 school leaders, the results point to aspects related to lack of training, lack of resources, widening inequalities and communication issues. The DTs are the same as used before. However, these technologies were used more frequently. These findings imply the need to invest in continuous training for school leaders in managing crises, how to optimise the use of DT in schools; and to capitalise on internal and external partnerships in collaborative efforts and to network to overcome the lack of resources, social needs, and inequalities. The lessons learned during the process of finding and evaluating solutions can contribute to improving school management processes in crises, in a post-pandemic future.