Education in the Post COVID era

COVID-19 has made a lot of disruptive changes in our life. It has made its marks in our personal, professional and social life. Some of these changes are permanent, some are temporary. Every walk of our life is affected, so is education.

Education, as the most important business of any society, has continued to serve its purpose only because it could go online. What would have happened to education, if the technology could not come up and offer the solution of taking it online? There would have been a complete stand still. Though we had some shortfalls while moving very quickly to online education by and large it served the purpose. Majority in the education domain was not prepared for such a change. However, the situation made educators, students and parents rise to the occasion. There were concerns of poor IT infrastructure from different parts of the world. A large number of students, especially from the developing nations, could only resort to the lecture classes through television. Some were lucky to have online interactive classes with great online content and trained teachers.

As life goes back from the new normals to the normals we are more used to, it is never ‘a going back’ to where we come from. Education will be looked at with care and caution. New thoughts and models will certainly emerge out of our experiences during covid 19. This phase gives us the opportunity to consider the purpose and process of education from different perspectives and arrive at models and solutions that will serve the real purpose of education in the long term.

The changes we experienced during the pandemic were short term and situation demanded. The only purpose of such changes was just to keep the ball rolling. Some of these changes are not that great in the long term, some are good to have.

What will be the future of online learning? Will it be fully shelved as schools and colleges open up? Trends reveals that online learning has made its entry in a big way and it is here to stay. But not as it used to be during the pandemic. There will be a blend of classroom learning and online learning. In fact, in the long term online learning can not replace classroom learning. Models will be developed where a blend of both is used efficiently complimenting each other to make teaching and learning effective and impactful.

Can online education be better? If not hit by pandemic, educators would have been embracing online teaching tools at a very slow pace. This would have been primarily because of compliance. On the other hand, how many institutions and educators have considered online learning as a strategic change in the way education happens? How many institutions have invested in digital learning before COVID-19?

The pandemic has brought about a sudden change in this attitude and all the educators now agree that investing on building robust online learning platforms and content is vital for survival in the post COVID era. Improved quality in online learning both in technology and content is expected in recent years.

Should we reconsider the curriculum? This may not be a thought triggered out of pandemic experiences but given the magnitude and momentum of changes we are experiencing, it is clear that lifelong careers and traditional employment pathways will not exist in the way that they had in the past. Jobs and the way we do business are evolving and the evolution is at lightning speed. Thus there is almost no knowledge or skills that can be guaranteed to meet the needs of the unknown, uncertain, and constantly changing future. For this reason, educational institutions can no longer provide all that is needed for the future before students graduate and enter the world.

The curriculum needs to focus more on developing students’ capabilities instead of focusing only on ‘template’ content and knowledge. It needs to be concerned with students’ social and emotional wellbeing as well. Moreover, it needs to make sure that students have an education experience that is globally connected and environmentally connected. As important is the gradual disappearance of school subjects such as history and physics for all students. The content is still important, but it should be incorporated into a competency-based curriculum.

It is important to consider the curriculum as evolving. Although system-level curriculum frameworks have to be developed, they must accommodate changes with time and contexts. Any system-level curriculum should enable the capacity for schools to contextualize and make changes to it as deemed necessary. Such changes must be justifiable of course but a system-level curriculum framework should not use national or state level accountability assessments to constrain the changes

Pedagogy should change as well. Direct instruction should be cast away for its “unproductive successes” or short-term successes but long term damages.In its place should be new models of teaching and learning. The new models can have different formats and names but they should be student- centered, inquiry-based, authentic, and purposeful. New forms of pedagogy should focus on student-initiated explorations of solutions to authentic and significant problems. They should help students develop abilities to handle the unknown and uncertain instead of requiring memorization of known solutions to known problems.

The primary purpose of education is to enlighten the minds and prepare students to lead a quality, fulfilling life. That includes their professional and personal life. In an ever changing world, imparting skills is not so relevant because skills become obsolete quite often. An attitude and mindset of continuous learning, perseverance and ability to adapt quickly to the changing situations make education meaningful and purposeful. Moreover, a shift from teacher or curriculum centric approach to a student centric approach is the need of the hour in education. Visionary educators have set out on this journey. Let’s hope that they carve out a way for the generations to excel and illuminate.