How countries should bet on education against Covid-19?
|Education institutes in 100 + countries completely shut| More than 1 billion children out of school| Highest rise in use of online study sources in recent history|
Covid-19 has past its half-year anniversary — too bad.
What did Covid-19 cost us so far?
- More than 18 million affected globally.
- 700,000 + deaths worldwide.
- Global healthcare pushed to limits.
- Economies hitting blind walls around the world.
How did we face Covid-19 as the most intelligent form of animals on the face of earth? — Questionable
In the wake of Covid-19, the day-to-day life across nations came to a halt; literally, stood still. The world we once knew was dysfunctional. It had the impact spreading across all aspects of daily human activities — from consuming meals, meeting people to making money. Just equally, the virus set its eye on education and children on the earth!
To give the discussion a start — amidst the whole hassle of having students “on-track” with their education, global organizations such as UNESCO helped countries to bring light to the consequences of the seemingly unending effect of the pandemic. The global response from UNESCO waged between Webinars, providing technical assistance to deploy distant learning facilities using high-tech, low-tech and no-tech approaches.
Covid-19 is quite possibly the call for global educators to revamp how they teach basics to students.
Nonetheless — countries took drastic measures to assure education took off with least latency.
But,
What are these methods of, high-tech, low-tech and non-tech approaches that slowly change landscapes of teaching during the pandemic?
Needless to say — primary to tertiary education in the country is just as important as other basic services provided to the citizens of the country, but do the educational providers, governments and other responsible local bodies have the whole idea of how well things should be settling well?
To give a slight edge, all the key areas of discussion, high-tech, low-tech and non-tech approaches have been buzzing throughout the recent times. But refactoring is quite a command to prompt during these days.
High-tech approach
Just as it sounds, the complete utilization of High-tech approach is an ask with a demand!
In a high-tech environment, use of tools such as E-readers, Voice-to-text programs, voice activated phones, Word predictors are symbolic. Teaching experience is given a much needed deviation in a high-end Ed-tech environment — You can have your say!
High-tech approach is used by majority of the countries in the western hemisphere of the world. The majority of Europe, North America, countries in Asia and the Pacific such as Japan, China, Australia and New Zealand make the most of the tech in store.
The pros of using high-tech tools to teach students, despite the stage of study is: they tend to think sharp — and during tertiary education, exposure of students to tools and Ed-tech is vital as they help students to perform well in the corporate, specially across a multitude of collaboration tools, despite the domain of work they select to pursue their career in.
Fact — countries capable were giving to embrace the online experience, but the road block they hit, Covid-19, forced Ed-tech to act steady and faster.
In countries such as Kuwait, a position “Educational Technologist” was introduced to cope up with the rapid change in learning patterns, also social media, during years of pre-covid conditions. These positions are more prevalent in the current context of education, with their tasks just as hard as coping up the effect of Covid-19 as they look in the numbers on how well they can take up the job to provide the best for the country’s education.
On the hind-side, students who would roam around the classrooms freely felt restricted and though in some well-developed countries, majority students have the privilege of having easy access to high-end Ed-tech sources, a considerable minority of the population still faced issues keeping up to date. But, mostly, it is well taken care of with the right utilization of resources.
Low-tech approach
Countries that keep this method as an approach to battle Covid-19 stir rely on a moderate level of technology.
Than one-to-one online interaction and live sessions conducted with the help of internet and collaborative services, the countries or states tend to use more of digital media such as Television and combination of other multimedia — just to add, the printed media, playing well with a minute percentage.
A majority of countries adopting to a low-tech education experience are mostly countries with economic hardships: majority of African and Middle-eastern regions along with few countries in the region of South America fall into this category of Ed-tech.
Afghanistan, as an example evolved its traditional teaching to a low-tech multimedia based education system. As an initiative under the Directorate of Technical and Vocational Education, a guideline called “Alternative Education Scheme for Persistence of ‘Corona Virus’ in the Country ” introduced three scenarios to the system, each of which with three different time spans. To avoid major dependencies, authorities have pulled out this mechanism to help school-children out to pursue they education during the pandemic, introducing the use of broadcast media: video and audio for students mainly focusing in high school and Grade 13 and Grade 14, as a starter.
Bangladesh — utilizes its state-owned television network, Bangladesh Television (BTV) to televise educations lessons with dedicated time slots for students from Grade Six to Grade ten. Rather with a limited accessibility, similar content televised is being made available through Bangladesh Television YouTube channel.
A Green light — Both Afghanistan and Bangladesh, along with the aid of Non-Governmental Organizations such as UNESCO have drafted plans to make the education experience of students in their countries more seamless.
Just as sweet as it may sound, making progress could be a rough road to head. Their biggest Challenge? — Economy.
No-tech approach
The no-tech approach to battle Covid-19 is an absolute hassle. Needless to say, the no-tech approach could plenty-well be utilized with full effect with an assistance of an Ed-tech approach. Tactile resources, that limit the human dependency on technology has a list of pros to put down in the aspect of distant learning.
Simply put, Under prevailing pandemic conditions, a No-tech approach would make less sense without a low-tech or high-tech application.
Summary!
What should educators could possibly be looking for? — If Educators are in for a drastic change in ways of teaching, how the changes could be possible for a high-end Edtech transition?
Most relied tools and technology for a successful high-tech approach, the following are considered a necessity — Anything more is perfect!
- A sound internet connection — Duh….
- A functional connective device to use internet (a laptop… in the worst case, a mobile phone).
- Supporting number of software applications to utilize the maximum length of the online high-end Edtech experience.
This is only an entry-level requirement!
Global and Local educators should be looking at how these requirements could be settled, considering all means possible: legal, economical and social aspects in the least.
As it is most often considered, the following factors have the biggest impact on the scaling education system of respective countries, and into most of the below mentioned factors the governing bodies should put the money to!
- Plans on implementation- Vision and Scope of Edtech implementation.
- Fundamental resources available.
- Policies and economics in place for establishment and further enhancement.
- Technical knowledge of both teachers/ lecturers and students.
- Technology-based academical content needed to be covered.
- The ability of addressing the issues faced in dealing with “Tech issues”.
All what could stand between the slightest decision made towards the betterment of the student during the pandemic, or not, is a right utilization of a resource, a policy or finance.
The actual result could be quite a raft — or a even a spaceship! The risk all worth. It forces people to change, for good.
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