From Challenges to Opportunities: Reorganization of Teacher Education during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Post-Socialist Countries

Although the COVID-19 pandemic is far from over, there is no doubt that education researchers will analyze the changes in teaching and learning over the years to come. There is no certainty that new waves and variants of COVID-19 will not force humanity to radically change educational technologies in the future. This will bring mankind closer to the predictions of science-fiction authors and futurists, not taken seriously before. In this regard, it is important to scientifically document and analyze various measures for transforming education in the current situation, thus, creating the database for future generations. Analysis reveals that geographically adjacent countries with numerous current or historical interrelations, show the uniqueness of their response to the pandemic because of a number of current economic, social, cultural and geographical factors. Quite promising in this regard are the post-socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe, which in the second half of the 20th century had almost identical principles for developing national education systems, but changed significantly under the influence of the reforms of the last thirty years. Comparing the cases of five universities from Russia, Germany, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic enable us, not only to identify common problems, but also to describe the most effective measures for the reorganization of higher education during the COVID-19 pandemic, dictated by the need to sustain the quality of teacher training.