Start time: 12:00p EST | 6:00pm CEST | 3:30a ACDT

In August this year, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres described the COVID 19 pandemic as having led to the largest disruption of education in history.  Over a billion children have been affected, with the most vulnerable – ‘learners with disabilities, those in minority or disadvantaged communities, displaced and refugee students and those in remote areas at the highest risk of being left behind.’ Gutteres acknowledged “a generational opportunity to reimagine education’.

In many ways this has also been a year of convergent crises - the pandemic, the climate crisis, the learning crisis that predates the pandemic, the mental health crisis for young people, intergenerational and racial conflict, and the increasing realization that the world is not on track to meet any of the Sustainable Development Goal targets.

Social and Emotional Learning is a legitimate component of the response to all of these crises. Understanding and appreciation of SEL has increased throughout the year and this trend will continue into 2021 with the publication of a major international OECD study on SES in January.

Please join Dominic Regester (Program Director, Salzburg Global Seminar; Executive Committee, Karanga, Austria), Dr Saran Stewart (Associate Professor, Neag School of Education, University of Connecticut, USA) and Laura Hamilton (Adjunct Behavioral Scientist, Education Testing Service, Princeton, USA) for a one-hour live webinar looking at some of the different ways in which SEL has been a key feature of education reform in 2020.