ReShaping Education in 2020

Three ways the COVID-19 pandemic could reshape education.

  • The coronavirus pandemic has changed how millions around the globe are educated.
  • New solutions for education could bring much-needed innovation.
  • Given the digital divide, new shifts in education approaches could widen equality gaps.

In a matter of weeks, coronavirus (COVID-19) has changed how students are educated around the world. Those changes give us a glimpse at how education could change for the better – and the worse – in the long term.

With the coronavirus spreading rapidly across Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and the United States, countries have taken swift and decisive actions to mitigate the development of a full-blown pandemic. In the past two weeks, there have been multiple announcements suspending attendance at schools and universities. As of March 13, the OECD estimated that over 421 million children are affected due to school closures announced or implemented in 39 countries. Also, another 22 states have announced partial “localized” closures.

These risk-control decisions have led millions of students into temporary ‘home-schooling’ situations, especially in some of the most heavily impacted countries, like China, South Korea, Italy, and Iran. These changes have certainly caused a degree of inconvenience, but they have also prompted new examples of educational innovation. Although it is too early to judge how reactions to COVID-19 will affect education systems around the world, signs are suggesting that it could have a lasting impact on the trajectory of learning innovation and digitization. 

Below, we follow three trends that could hint at future transformations:

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 old classrooms. However, COVID-19 has become a catalyst for educational institutions worldwide to search for innovative solutions in a relatively short period.

To help slow the virus’ spread, students in Hong Kong started to learning at home, in February, via interactive apps. In China, 120 million Chinese got access to learning material through live television broadcasts.

Other more straightforward – yet no less creative – solutions have been implemented around the globe. In one Nigerian school, standard asynchronous online learning tools (such as reading material via Google Classroom), were augmented with synchronous face-to-face video instruction, to help preempt school closures.

Similarly, students at one school in Lebanon began leveraging online learning, even for subjects such as physical education. Students shot and sent over their videos of athletic training and sports 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 in countries such as China, U.S., and Japan, we will see learners and solution providers genuinely 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 modalities – from live broadcasts to ‘educational influencers’ to virtual reality experiences. Education could become a habit that integrates into daily routines – an authentic lifestyle.

2. Public-private educational partnerships could grow in importance

In just the past few weeks, we have seen learning consortiums and coalitions taking shape, with diverse stakeholders – including governments, publishers, education professionals, technology providers, and telecom network operators – coming together to utilize digital platforms as a temporary solution to the crisis. In emerging countries where the government has predominantly provided education, this could become a prevalent and consequential trend to future learning.

In China, the Ministry of Education has assembled a group of diverse constituents to develop a new cloud-based, online learning and broadcasting platform as well as to upgrade a suite of education infrastructure, led by the Education Ministry and Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Similarly, the Hong Kong-based readtogether.hk forum (China Daily video here) is a consortium of over 60 educational organizations, publishers, media, and entertainment industry professionals, providing more than 900 educational assets, including videos, book chapters, assessment tools, and counseling services for free. The consortium intends to continue using and maintaining the platform even after COVID-19 is contained.

Through examples like these, it is evident that educational innovation is receiving attention beyond the typical government-funded or non-profit-backed social project. In the past decade, 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 U.S. to Samsung in Korea to Tencent, Ping An, and Alibaba in China, corporations are awakening to the strategic imperative of an educated populace. 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 formed around a common educational goal.

3. The digital divide could widen

Most schools in affected areas are finding stop-gap solutions to continue teaching, but the quality of learning is heavily dependent on the level and quality of digital access. After all, only around 60% of the globe’s population is online. While virtual classes on personal tablets may be the norm in Hong Kong, for example, many students in less developed economies rely on lessons and assignments sent via WhatsApp or email.

Moreover, the less affluent and digitally savvy individual families are, the further their students are left behind. When classes transition online, these children lose out because of the cost of digital devices and data plans.

Unless access costs decrease and quality of access increase in all countries, the gap in education quality, and thus socioeconomic equality, will be further exacerbated. The digital divide could become more extreme if educational accessibility is dictated by access to the latest technologies.

The rapid spread of COVID-19 has demonstrated the importance of building resilience to face various threats, from pandemic disease to extremist violence to climate insecurity, and even, yes, 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. Resilience must be built into our educational system to ensure those skills remain a priority for all students.

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The Benefits of Online Classes

Are you currently stuck in a job that you don’t like or isn’t allowing you to be as creative or as happy as you could be? If so, it’s a great time to talk about going to classes online. The Core Foundation offers their Dental Administration and Dental Assisting courses online! Allowing you to be in a new more rewarding career whenever you are ready!

Going to class online has been a growing trend over the last decade and with technology growing as much as it has, you may be thinking it’s time to go back. Let’s talk about a few reasons why going to school online may be the next best move for you.

Online Classes Work Around Your Busy Life
The biggest question you might be asking yourself is if you have time to go back to school. Luckily, with online classes, they can be done when you have time for them, not the other way around. Online classes are structured to be completed when you have time for them. You still have due dates for assignments, and articles that are important for you to learn, but you can still work full-time and have time to get your classes done.
You can wake up a little earlier in the morning to read a chapter and after dinner that night, you can take the quiz on that chapter to complete the lesson. You don’t get opportunities like this from normal classes. Online classes give you the freedom you need to complete the regular tasks in your life and learn the skill you need for your future job at the same time.

No Need to Travel
Another huge benefit to online classes is that you save time traveling. You don’t have to worry about getting stuck in traffic or trying to find parking at the university. You also will save money on gas, parking, and walking to classes. Who doesn’t love saving money? Online classes also save you time because you don’t have to travel to different classroom buildings depending on which subject you have next. No stressing out about class start times or finding the right building for your classes. It’s all a lot more simple.

Sick? Not a Problem
Unfortunately, we all get sick from time to time and a huge benefit of online classes is that you don’t have to be in the classroom to learn. When you go to classes at school and you get sick you miss the lecture and attendance points which can hurt your grade in the long run. You also need to have a friend copy notes for you so that you don’t miss important information that will be on the tests.
But with online classes, you can do them from your home and doing them while sick is easy. You can lay in your bed and listen to the lesson from the comfort of your warm sheets and still get the work done that you needed to. You don’t have to worry about getting other people sick or having to get up and get ready to go to class when its the last thing you want to do. You can let your body rest and not stress about missing your classes with online classes. Plus not being in a classroom full of other people during flu season means your odds of getting sick are less which we all can agree is a good thing.

Lower Costs and Less Debt
Doing online classes is less expensive than going to college or school because you don’t have to pay for housing or additional books. One of the largest expenses you will have going to college is having to pay for a dorm room in your first year if it’s required at your school. When you do online classes, you are not required to live on campus or pay for housing at the university because you’re doing it from home.
Another huge plus is that when you sign up for online classes, the cost of the class will have the books and quizzes you need to complete the course. No additional fees for clickers to mark your attendance in lectures. No special online code key you need to have to turn your homework in. Everything you will need comes in the course you pay for which makes going to school online that much easier.

Self-Discipline and Responsibility
Practicing self-discipline and responsibility is always a plus and something that we all need to practice from time to time. If you are the type of person that struggles with self-discipline then online classes are going to be great for you. When you go to school online you are accountable for yourself and your education.
A lot of students like to blame professors or the class structure for why they didn’t do very well in the class but you don’t have to worry about that with online classes. You are responsible for turning in your assignments, doing the quizzes and tests, and you get to do them all on your own time. This means you don’t have to worry about cramming or multiple tests on the same day. You are responsible and in control of your future in online classes and its nice to have that power compared to normal classes.

As you can see, there are a lot of benefits to going to classes online. Being able to do them on your own time and from the comfort of your own home makes a lot of difference when it comes to learning. If you are tired of the dead-end jobs and are looking for a new career, then online classes may be the next step to achieving your goals. The only thing stopping you from achieving the career you want is you. So get out there, try some online classes, and take the next step to your brighter future.