Face masks in education: The cases of Greece and Singapore

Abstract

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, governments across the world implemented practices and rules related to masks in educational settings and beyond. Through a desktop analysis and systematic literature review, leveraging educational, governmental and journalistic sources, this article provides an extreme comparison of two nations’ intra-period responses on the use of face masks in education. Taking the examples of two different countries (Greece and Singapore), we discuss their contrasting approaches to face mask use in education, ranging from pre-schools to universities, while taking into account the macroenvironmental dissimilarities of their educational systems and technological capabilities. There are significant opportunities to learn by examining the governmental, pedagogical, and community reactions of different countries about mask use, in order to strengthen educators’ collective response to COVID-19 now and into the future. These various threads could then be pulled back together in a discussion across borders.