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Karima Almazroui, Mohamed Bin Zayed University for Humanities, United Arab EmiratesAbstract
Global crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic expose the fragility of education systems and the need for new forms of collaborative governance. This study examines the United Arab Emirates' nationally coordinated volunteer-teaching initiative, in which more than 600 educators provided remote instruction to children of frontline workers. Operating within a centralized system supported by national digital infrastructure, the initiative demonstrates how structured co-production can transform volunteerism from an ad hoc response into an institutionalized model of public-service resilience. Using a qualitative case-study design with mixed-methods integration, and guided by Fraser's participatory justice, Freire's critical pedagogy, and Vygotsky's sociocultural theory, the study finds measurable academic gains, improved motivation, and enhanced psychosocial well-being. Findings indicate that digital equity, professional scaffolding, and civic trust enabled effective collaboration within hierarchy. The paper advances structured co-production as a hybrid governance model that reconciles central coordination with participatory inclusion, aligning with Sustainable Development Goals 4, 10, 16, and 17 to promote equity, inclusion, and institutional resilience.
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Conference: WCE2026Stream: Education
This paper is part of the WCE2026 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Almazroui K. (2026) Structured Co-production in Crisis: Rethinking Centralization Through the UAE Volunteer Teaching Initiative ISSN: 2760-7259 The Washington DC Conference on Education 2026: Official Conference Proceedings (pp. 343-357) https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2760-7259.2026.28
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2760-7259.2026.28
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