HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE POST COVID-19 WORLD - LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES

This paper explores the impact the sanitary crisis has had on education in general and on higher education in particular all over the world. There is already a large amount of literature documenting the effects of the COVID-19 crisis on education and it is all freely accessible. This in itself is a result of this pandemic and part of a growing trend towards open and free access to the results of research. This paper focuses on higher education issues by attempting to integrate the literature and data available and making sense of the many issues surfacing. The Boston College Center for International Higher Education, for example, puts forward figures from the beginning of April 2020 showing that higher education institutions closed in 170 countries and communities and that COVID-19 disrupted over 220 million tertiary education students representing 13 % of the total number of students affected globally. The figures may differ depending on the period, moment, and measurement methods, but most experts and researchers view the implications for higher education as mostly negative. The same source considers that the effects of the health crisis on the higher education sector will amplify the already existing gaps and inequalities between learners, institutions, and countries. Experts from around the world seem to agree that although there will be significant variations of any possible such scenarios at a global level, there is a clear likelihood that universities in developing countries will be more affected than those in developed economies. Also, the effects on the internationalization of higher education are important both in terms of universities' incomes and market shares and, mainly, in terms of students' satisfaction and quality of learning. The majority of universities everywhere responded to the crisis with a quick movement of their programs online. This proved to be a challenge for all the parties involved: university leadership and management, teaching staff, students, and the rest of the stakeholders of higher education in the respective communities. The research methodology is mainly qualitative, analyzing, and integrating sources of literature, academic, professional, and investigative, as well as the authors' own experiences in two diverse organizational higher education contexts. The data used in our research is from available, public sources. The paper aims not only to raise relevant questions but also to offer some possible suggestions or at least highlight some issues that might help decision-makers to prepare for the post COVID world.