How Covid-19 Will drive the Long Overdue Revolution in Education?
Learning Never Stops. Well, the education sector has proven this thought right, when they resorted to new techniques of learning via online resources. As more and more schools around the nation are forced to close their doors, they are forced to adapt to online learning or at least make a certain component available online. This is done in attempt to retain the existing students and also open new doors for potential students who are seeking convenient ways to learn across the world.
An important factor that needs to be taken care off in this situation is ensuring that services are being delivered to whatever extent possible. This move may have proven to be a boon for many professionals who are already use to the working on their laptops. They can simply plug in at homes now. Yes, they are missing out on the face to face interactions which hopefully will be resolved when things normalize. But for students it may be a bit of a challenge to adapt to this new technique especially the ones who are habituated to attending classroom sessions and those who are not that tech savvy. Using this new technology may hinder the process.
Online education is the simple development of self-administered tools as defined by many educational institutions, content in which students progress through exercises and occasionally undergoing assessment tests. In this methodology, the teacher’s role is minimal and may be sufficient for certain subjects, corresponds to a completely different concept, or is even replaced by tutors who answer questions mechanically. This is a completely different product, which is not necessarily bad — as long as it meets the expectations of the student who enrolled in it, satisfaction may be high — that generally tends to have single figure achievement percentages: it is perfectly normal for only 2% or 3% of those initially enrolled to end up consuming all of the available course content. At some point, the Covid-19 pandemic will come to an end, and most aspects of daily life will return to normal, yet higher education may never be the same.
Online education has been around for a very long time now. It is effective, flexible, and inexpensive and is a proven tool for adult education and professional continuing education. Administrative matters, academic scheduling, curricula, assignments, and even some assessments have moved online.
While this may be challenging for some students who are not yet accustomed to important factors such as time management or other relevant skills, this has been a great boon to students around the world who have been looking for a greater number of opportunities for learning online. Those students and educational institutions that do successfully adapt to the current global pandemic and ensuing economic downturn will all be in a much better position to capitalize even after the current global crises have been successfully resolved.
The pandemic situation may change that. Millions of students will soon realize that they received some valuable education, even though they were not on campus, once the dust settles. Online education is not a perfect or easy substitute for the on-campus experience—but a blend of the two will be a perfect revolution in the education system – a long overdue revolution.