The ARC Thoughtmeet is a virtual bringing together of ideas and minds to create swift, timely, and practical collective solutions to urgent problems, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Each ARC Thoughtmeet will focus on one of ARC’s guiding principles of equity, broad excellence, inclusion, wellbeing, democracy, sustainability, human rights and policy in professionally run systems. The Thoughtmeet will include two eight-minute presentations (TM Starters) by world-renowned thought leaders and a facilitated discussion on important issues highlighted by the ARC members and Secretariat. The ARC Thoughtmeet facilitator is Steve Munby, former Chief Executive of England’s National College for School Leadership. All the ARC starters and anonymized summaries will be made available to the public and posted to the ARC website.
Overall goals and specific objectives of the ARC Thoughtmeet series:
- To build a collaborative and sustained virtual support network of engaged policymakers, system leaders, teacher union leaders and academics to produce collective solutions to urgent and unprecedented problems such as the Covid-19 pandemic;
- To mobilize knowledge and research on global education reform, best practices, and practical and relevant short, medium and long-term strategies to COVID-19 and disseminate this knowledge and findings among researchers, education professionals, policymakers, and the general public;
- To record and disseminate ideas from ARC thought leaders that will contribute to public understanding, political debate and professional practice in response to the COVID-19 pandemic;
- To further the 8 ARC value principles outlined above during a pandemic.
