The Dismantled Traditional Learning System Amidst Covid-19
COVID-19 pandemic has social and economic ramifications and will have long-term consequences on children and youths, their parents, and indeed entire civilisations. However, the havoc it has wreaked on the traditional education systems worldwide, affecting almost 1.6 billion students across 190 countries and continents, is devastating. Over a hundred countries are yet to set a date for schools to restart.
According to TeamLease’s “Covid-19 Learning Loss in Higher Education” report, students’ learning loss is estimated to be between 40–60%.
To what extent Covid-19 has affected our conventional education system? What solutions are there to bring forth? Let’s dig deeper.
A Void in the Educational Opportunities
How is Covid-19 dismantling the present learning system?
The Covid-19 pandemic is paralysing the global education system. The short term and long term effects of this unprecedented time have long-lasting implications on conventional learning procedures.
The digital gap and lengthier lockdowns are major contributors to the loss our children and youths have to face. However, the impact has been more severe for underprivileged children and their families due to the lack of access to the proper educational resources.
Covid-related school closures had an unequal impact on students, as not all children had the opportunities, skills, or access to continuing their education throughout the pandemic. For millions of youngsters, school closures will signal the end of their education rather than a brief interruption.
However, the worst consequence of the Covid-19 outbreak might be that education has lost its priority in many people’s eyes. After all, how do those children and their parents, having a marginalised condition, focus on enhancing their educational means while they may be struggling even to survive? In addition, the pandemic has made a significant impact on public education investment, as revenues are shifted into the health sector and the economy.
So, how would the world re-establish and compensate for the lost time? Let’s unfold what can be done globally as well as at an individual level.
Finding Light in the Darkness
Remote Learning Tools: Converting Traditional to Online
The crisis of the ongoing pandemic has sparked innovation in the education sector. We have seen some creative techniques to ensure the continuity of education and learning. Advanced technology has eliminated the need to impart formal education only through face-to-face classroom methods.
With the increased penetration of the internet in our lives, the concept of online learning has been strengthened. As a result, many unique online educational apps have stepped into the market with novel features to overcome the challenges of e-learning, like remaining engaged during online classes and staying motivated. May it be the idea of real-time learning with synchronous class activities, or may it be features like earning monetary rewards upon performing well, these apps prove to be pioneering.
Reversing the damage with policies
As a means of compensating for the lost time in school, many countries have tried various approaches. The time is to overcome the disrupted education system and minimise the aftereffects. The well-thought and well-implemented steps would go a long way in assembling and restoring the previous goals of quality education. Sustainable solutions should be built to revamp the derailed learning sector and continue the teaching-learning process.
The varying effect of Covid-19 on the learning ecosystem demands some significant reforms. However, with the helping hand of the government, some policy changes at the grassroots might serve as the much-needed force to upscale the graph of educational offerings. Thus, it becomes critical for governments to figure out which measures will help online learning become more effective.
No matter how greater they seem to be, these policies don’t hold any value if they can’t reach the masses. Thus, the focus should be on making the solutions effective, not just efficient. The efforts have to be made to make online education not limited to privileged students but to extend essential resources to even remote areas.
On the one hand, educational administrators and policymakers can use the pandemic to offer new learning modes accessible to all and scale up the system. On the other hand, with the support of parents and teachers, students can improve their academic performance manifold.
Fighting Together for an Equal Future
What would be the point if we as a society, as intellectual human beings, fail to provide a child’s fundamental right? How can we let their future tangled because of the present?
To attain the educational goals set before the pandemic, the dismantled learning system due to Covid-19 should undergo significant changes. Hence, the urgency is to make education all-inclusive, no matter what pandemics or other catastrophes come in the way.
