Headline Diplomat – Issue 1
The perilous lenses of COVID-19: The impact on the economy
Writes Sam Steve, Content Marketing Manager, Emira Digital Publishing, LinkedIn
COVID hits. Left and right, from elementary schools to colleges, the educational sector locks its doors and throws the key away.
The results: an unprecedented epidemic against the academic calendar. A postponement of student assessments, entrance exams, and graduations. A complete rush to transform academic institutions into digital-first entities. While some schools have gradually opened, fierce debates question the legitimacy of such decisions. Safety remains a big concern.
Unavoidable emergence of digital learning
Prior to the pandemic, educational institutions were slow to digitise. Without a uniform approach, they moved at their own pace to enable critical infrastructure; move their coursework online; train and master teachers’ skills on the way, while gradually shifting to digital teaching and learning – till they could fully adopt in online classes.
In theory, this would give schools, teachers, and students ample room for a trial and error period to foolproof its viability. And then one day comes that all planning goes down like an ace of cards living us to think of Mike Tyson’s wise words ‘everyone has a plan until they are punched in the face’. Like a sucker punch, waking us all up, the educational system crashes, while some risk takes move operations digitally.
Whether we move the entire educational system online is yet to be seen. For sure, what we can agree is that going forward online learning will become a big part of our educational system. Option for on-campus and online learning will be certainly sustained over time, possibly even making educations more affordable and accessible.
Portland Public school reopening plan is a good example of how this will work. According to an AP news bulletin, parents and students were advised to go online beginning Sept. 2nd, highlighting “It is important that our students, families, and employees understand that we will only reopen school buildings if public health experts say it is safe to do so. If we are not able to safely open… all teaching and learning for every student will take place virtually.”
Despite the efforts made, bridging the accessibility gap will continue being a persisting problem. Education is still quite expensive reserved for the elites. Equal opportunities are not really given to all students. But education should never by a luxury. On the contrary, it should be accessible to all.
The pandemic has possibly worsened these difficulties as not all institutions can move to a digital sphere, while many students do not have access to computers or high-speed internet.
For instance, even in the case of a developed country, such as Chicago, 70% of its over 360,000 students are from poor homes. One-third of these students lack access to a computer writes Brendan O’Brien for Reuters. Now take this example and see how this could potentially translate to an African or Balkan village.
Schools all over the world are trying to send equipment to students to enable their learning, but more needs to be done to stop students from falling behind. Here, a number of IT conglomerates would need to convene and cover the needs for educations; sending computers, ipads, and smartphones to schools and possibly even help schools build their digital spaces as part of their social corporate responsibility structures.
Big Universities like MIT, Sanford, Oxford, and Harvard have had to step up during this pandemic too. They have made their premium coursework available to the wider community. Their courses were up and running by the time that the pandemic hit.
For example, one can enroll in MIT’s top courses online. And for the next 6 weeks attend the same lectures as a student enrolled in the college. Harvard has done the same with much more affordable costs.
Speaking to CNBC Dharwal Shah, founder of Course Central said “over 450 IVY colleges are among those offering free courses online.” For interested students, this has presented an opportunity to learn from world-renowned experts.
UNESCO estimates that 1.5 billion students across the globe were out of school due to the pandemic. A growing surge of uncertainty has grown across the educational sphere; the future of educations, its teachers, and students.
Educational institutions struggle to find the best ways to assess students’ performance and grades and determine qualified students for next year’s entry into higher education.
Conclusion
The coronavirus pandemic, no doubt, has presented a tough, unprecedented challenge for everyone. It has disrupted our way of life and forced students, teachers, and parents to cooped at home.
COVID has pushed the educational system into unchartered territories. We must adopt digital learning at scale to, at least, ensure our children’s formal education can continue in some form. At the same time, we are acknowledging that more needs to be done to reach disadvantaged students.
Featured photo by Mikey Dabro, Pexels
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