In his 2007 best-seller, The Black Swan, Nassim Taleb wrote: ‘As we travel more on this planet, epidemics will be more acute […] and the successful killer will spread vastly more effectively’. Was this sentence, which has been reiterated by the media since the early days of Covid-19, prophetic of what took place globally in […]

In several countries, schools have remained closed and may operate at partial capacity in the next academic year. This will harm the academic progress and well-being of many children, but especially of those that already face many disadvantages. One such group is immigrant-origin students whose mother tongue differs from the language of instruction. The lack […]

The COVID-19 pandemic is changing the migration landscape in Spain. Migrants and their families are encountering the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on migration/travel restrictions and border controls. From a human rights perspective, this blog examines the conditions for irregular migrants in Spain in the context of COVID-19 to identify current challenges and opportunities while […]

While much of the existing discussion of the effects of school closures due to COVID-19 has been focused on impacts on educational outcomes, student performance and future earnings, this blog explores a different type of potential impact of long-term school closure, namely, an impact on young people’s values and attitudes. One of the most consistent […]

COVID-19 has revealed pre-existing fault-lines in the recruitment, employment and living conditions of Nepali migrant workers abroad. Now faced with their unprecedented return to Nepal, the challenges of repatriation and reintegration are immense while the future of emigration remains uncertain. Nepali migrant workers: Essential and vulnerable With a remittance-to-GDP ratio of over 25 per cent, […]