Education Systems and COVID19 The Way Forward
hello everyone
i’m assuming that those of you listening
or watching have been through
some kind of formal schooling looking
back at your experience
you’ve probably had to work in groups
because as you may know
it is well established that students
learn a lot when interacting with their
peers
you might have also gone on a field trip
to help you better understand the
lessons you’ve been taught
like going to the forest when learning
about different ecosystems but then
covet 19 came along and threw away
everything we knew as best practice in
education
this is however not the first time an
interruption to education has happened
it has happened before
in different individual countries due to
natural disasters
protests war and other reasons
but this is the first time an
interruption to education happens
globally and without being able to
predict
when the interruption will be over
ministers of education
educators researchers students parents
and the public
worldwide looked at each other and said
well but now what but there it was
the magical solution distance learning
it might have been the only way for
education systems
to demonstrate resilience many were
skeptical about it at first
russians for example were not sure about
its effectiveness
it is suggested however that we must not
use the
we must not use the term distance
learning
to explain what education systems did
during the pandemic
but instead use emergency remote
education
because systems adopted this approach in
order to survive
with minimal losses possible you see
this is an important realization
education systems
were not aiming for ideal education
delivery
but rather they switched to survival
mode
now that educators know that emergency
remote education
is the way to move forward without
interrupting education delivery
for god knows how long education systems
worldwide help to figure out
how they’ll implement emergency remote
education
the easiest way might have been online
websites and apps
with content available for self learning
and where virtual sessions take place
but we’re not talking about a group of
students or a school
or even a group of schools or
universities
where you can track the needs of
students and respond accordingly
we’re talking about nations moving from
face to face to online learning
almost overnight with all the
diversities present among its citizens
economically socially culturally etc
according to unicef out of the 127
countries with data
five methods were used for emergency
remote education
absent websites for live sessions or
self-learning
tv programs radio stations and
paper-based responses
with take-home packages in most cases
countries adopted more than one approach
to cater for the needs of
all students from different
socio-economic backgrounds
south korea for instance provided three
options for schools to choose two
or more from synchronous interactive
classes where students go online at a
specific time
to attend a class as synchronous
content-based classes
where the content is made available to
students to go through
at their own convenience or independent
assignments
where students are provided with tasks
to complete
independently some issues however were
raised
because of emergency remote education
and countries responded
quite differently to these issues i’ll
talk about
four of these issues one the digital
divide
the problem is not new but the pandemic
broadened the gap and highlighted the
inequalities that were present
long before the era of covet 19.
not every student in the world has
access to the internet
tv radio or even electricity governments
responded differently to this issue
turkey china and india were among the
countries that subsidized the internet
to students who need it
on the other hand in addition to
subsidizing the internet connection
the government in south korea provided
rental devices
to students in need another approach was
providing students with radios
as in burkina faso or using telephone
connections to deliver tasks to students
as was done in russia two trauma
psychological pressure
and anxiety the pandemic and the
lockdown were pressuring to all of us
of all age groups through though to
different degrees
the education systems should have taken
this into consideration
some systems did for instance in china
the government established counselling
services to students
as well as a hotline that residents can
call for psychological support
and provided services to help fresh
graduates
find jobs on the other hand emergency
remote education applied in saudi arabia
relied heavily on students motivation
their self-learning skills
and their parents involvement by
providing
mainly asynchronous content this
added to the heavy psychological social
and emotional impact
of the pandemic on the parents and the
students
this brings us to the third issue the
emerging educational roles of parents
parents suddenly found themselves
responsible for their children’s
education
in some countries such as saudi arabia
the parental role was essential
which not only was a heavy burden on
students and their parents
but also increased the inequalities
between students
depending on the availability of their
parents and whether or not
they have a full-time jobs of their own
as well as
their level of education and readiness
to tutor
this was also the reason that sets
unique challenges
for households with multiple children in
egypt
the last issue is that unique basic soft
and technical skills were necessary to
survive in a time of crisis
i remember spending the first 15 minutes
of a session
waiting for the professor to call the it
department
because she couldn’t log in believe me
nobody knows the need
for these skills during the pandemic
better than the i.t people at
every institution teachers and students
were suddenly in need to gain
skills related to the use of technology
to continue teaching and learning
during the pandemic japan for instance a
country widely known for its technology
and advancement
lagged introducing technology into
schools and universities
and thus its teachers and students
lacked the essential skills to survive
during the pandemic
which led the government to postpone the
beginning of the new academic year
which usually starts in april instead of
implementing
emergency remote education it is worth
noting here that
remote learning should not be
face-to-face learning
done online although a lot of countries
reported facing this challenge
i’ll give the example of india and
russia where teachers kept on teaching
the same way as they did
prior to the pandemic but instead of
standing in the classroom in front of
the students
they were now sitting in front of a
computer
this is what happened during the
pandemic what happens afterwards
what will the postcovid education system
look like
what are the lessons learned that will
help systems become
more resilient first of all we can’t
really tell the effects of the
approaches
that the education systems adopted
during the pandemic
on students education just yet this is
an analysis
that has to wait a bit longer as for
whether education systems will
change after the pandemic is over here’s
what we hope
happens one not back to business as
usual
the pandemic forced education systems to
take steps into the virtual world
which would have otherwise taken so much
time
we don’t expect schools and universities
to turn 100
virtual as is the case currently but it
is expected
that blended learning approaches to
education will be adopted
and more online learning approaches
would be implemented
two a very important lesson to take from
the pandemic
is that we must fix the systems in favor
of those who have been facing
injustice within the education system
prior to go with 19 pandemic systems
should invest to reach marginalized and
vulnerable children
as previously mentioned the issue of
inequality was pre-existing
in the system and it was only
highlighted
during the pandemic in simple words the
system should now
resolve this issue they should invest in
the infrastructure of remote and rural
areas
they must provide equal access and
support
to students three each education system
should look at its own experience to
enhance its curriculum
teacher training structure or other
aspects of education
for instance because the curriculum in
egypt was
highly dependent on road memorization
students
and teachers found it hard to shift to
research and
project-based learning during the
pandemic
how will education systems prepare for
possible upcoming interruptions
in the systems the response to the
pandemic was different in different
countries and societies
but perhaps the most important lesson
here
is for systems to create a plan b
because this is what resilient systems
look like
they have the resources and the
knowledge that help them survive
when facing challenges and maybe after
all this is over we can give parents a
well-needed break
and get students to sleep in schools for
a couple of days
weeks maybe thank you