How will the Covid19 Pandemic Impact the future of Education?
As schools around the world transition to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, students, parents, and educators are wondering what this means for education in the future.
Digital education is catching up and can overcome traditional classroom education.
Historically, digital education has often been viewed as the "free version" of traditional education, or the second best option available to low-income communities that do not have access to traditional education. However, this may not be the case in the future.
While much of the world is likely to return to school after the pandemic subsides (given that schools are a cornerstone of young people's personal development and a form of daycare for working parents), the difference will be that Online learning will also be acceptable and credible in the future. While we previously saw a minority of parents homeschool their children, we can see a much larger number in the future, especially if families discover or invent other ways for youth to socialize and parents to work during the pandemic.
Challenges on Digitalization of Education
As shared in the previous posts, the world is not only facing a pandemic, but we are now also in the midst of digitizing every industry and aspect of our society. This means that many parts of our lives that used to be separate will now converge. Covid19 is simply speeding up that process and is becoming the main reason for key decision makers to take the decisions to transform their businesses.
Education is part of this transformation and Covid19 will definitely boost this change. Although this transformation will be led by technology, many operational challenges will need to be faced. Educational institutions will need to consider and find answers to questions like how to ensure universal access to technology or how to maintain the contact with classmates (we are social beings and still need human contact), without missing that children under certain age still need a supervisor to take care of them, either they are at home or in another place.
However, thinking positively, creating platforms that enable online education will open a new way to access education nowadays still not solved for rural areas and places where access to physical schools is complex or there is a lack of teachers.
