In a matter of months, COVID-19 has changed how students are educated around the world. From Benoni to Barcelona, from Cape Town to Canberra, children are being educated either remotely by their schools or home-schooled by their parents.
These changes give us a glimpse at how education in a post-coronavirus world could alter for the better, and worse, in the long term.
According to a study conducted by the US-based education non-profit Minerva Project, and published by the World Economic Forum, new solutions for education could bring much needed innovation. But, at the same time, new shifts in approaches could widen equality gaps.
“Although it is too early to judge how reactions to COVID-19 will affect education systems around the world, there are signs suggesting that it could have a lasting impact on the trajectory of learning innovation and digitisation,” say the authors of the study, Gloria Tam and Diana El-Azar.
The authors identify three key points:
1. Education – nudged and pushed to change – could lead to surprising innovations.
The slow pace of change in academic institutions globally is lamentable, with centuries-old lecture-based approaches to teaching, entrenched institutional biases and outmoded classrooms. However, COVID-19 has become a catalyst for educational institutions worldwide to search for innovative solutions in a relatively short period of time.
Students in Hong Kong have been learning at home via interactive apps. In China, 120-million learners got access to learning material through live television broadcasts.
Other simpler, yet no less creative, solutions were implemented around the globe. In one Nigerian school, standard online learning tools such as reading material via Google Classroom were augmented with synchronous face-to-face video instruction to help pre-empt school closures.
Similarly, students at one school in Lebanon are leveraging online learning, even for subjects such as physical education. Students filmed and sent their own videos of sports activities to their teachers as ‘homework’, pushing students to learn new digital skills.
One student’s parent remarked: “While the sports exercise took a few minutes, my son spent three hours shooting, editing and sending the video in the right format to his teacher.”
With 5G technology becoming more prevalent, we will see learners and solution providers truly embracing the ‘learning anywhere, anytime’ concept of digital education in a range of formats. Traditional in-person classroom learning will be complemented with new learning staregies – from live broadcasts to virtual reality experiences. Learning could become a habit that is integrated into daily routines; a true lifestyle.
2. Public-private educational partnerships could grow in importance
The researchers note that the world has seen learning consortiums and coalitions taking shape through diverse stakeholders coming together to utilise digital platforms as a temporary solution to the crisis. These stakeholders include governments, publishers, education professionals, technology providers and telecom network operators.
“In emerging countries where education has predominantly been provided by the government, this could become a prevalent and consequential trend to future education,” the study says.
The researchers point out it is evident that educational innovation is receiving attention beyond the typical government-funded or non-profit-backed social project.
“We have already seen far greater interest and investment coming from the private sector in education solutions and innovation. From Microsoft and Google in the US, to Samsung in Korea … corporations are awakening to the strategic imperative of an educated populace,” they say.
“While most initiatives to date have been limited in scope and relatively isolated, the pandemic could pave the way for much larger-scale, cross-industry coalitions to be formed around a common educational goal.”
3. The digital divide could widen
Addressing the concern, often voiced in South Africa and elsewhere in Africa, that less affluent and digitally savvy students could be left behind because of lack of expertise and high costs, the researchers warn that unless access costs decrease and the quality of digital access increases in all countries, the gap in education quality will be further exacerbated.
“The digital divide could become more extreme if educational access is dictated by access to the latest technologies,” they say.
The final word: Build resilience
In summary, the study points out that the rapid spread of COVID-19 has demonstrated the importance of building resilience to face various threats, from pandemic disease to climate insecurity and even rapid technological change.
“The pandemic is also an opportunity to remind ourselves of the skills students need in this unpredictable world – such as informed decision making, creative problem solving and perhaps above all, adaptability. To ensure those skills remain a priority for all students, resilience must be built into our educational systems as well,” the researchers say.
Source: The South African Read More
