The COVID-19
pandemic has
changed education
forever. This is how
With schools shut across the world, millions of children have had to adapt to new
types of learning.
Image: REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes
29 Apr 2020
1. Cathy LiHead of Media, Entertainment and Sport Industries, World Economic
Forum
2. Farah LalaniCommunity Lead, Global Coalition for Digital Safety, World
Economic Forum
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The COVID-19 has resulted in schools shut all across the
world. Globally, over 1.2 billion children are out of the
classroom.
As a result, education has changed dramatically, with the
distinctive rise of e-learning, whereby teaching is undertaken
remotely and on digital platforms.
Research suggests that online learning has been shown to
increase retention of information, and take less time,
meaning the changes coronavirus have caused might be
here to stay.
While countries are at different points in their COVID-19 infection rates,
worldwide there are currently more than 1.2 billion children in 186
countries affected by school closures due to the pandemic. In Denmark,
children up to the age of 11 are returning to nurseries and schools after
initially closing on 12 March, but in South Korea students are responding
to roll calls from their teachers online.
With this sudden shift away from the classroom in many parts of the globe,
some are wondering whether the adoption of online learning will continue to
persist post-pandemic, and how such a shift would impact the worldwide
education market.
Even before COVID-19, there was already high growth and adoption in
education technology, with global edtech investments reaching US$18.66
billion in 2019 and the overall market for online education projected to
reach $350 Billion by 2025. Whether it is language apps, virtual
tutoring, video conferencing tools, or online learning software, there has
been a significant surge in usage since COVID-19.
How is the education sector responding to COVID-19?
In response to significant demand, many online learning platforms are
offering free access to their services, including platforms like BYJU’S, a
Bangalore-based educational technology and online tutoring firm founded
in 2011, which is now the world’s most highly valued edtech company.
Since announcing free live classes on its Think and Learn app, BYJU’s has
seen a 200% increase in the number of new students using its product,
according to Mrinal Mohit, the company's Chief Operating Officer.
Tencent classroom, meanwhile, has been used extensively since mid-
February after the Chinese government instructed a quarter of a billion full-
time students to resume their studies through online platforms. This
resulted in the largest “online movement” in the history of education with
approximately 730,000, or 81% of K-12 students, attending classes via the
Tencent K-12 Online School in Wuhan.
Other companies are bolstering capabilities to provide a one-stop shop for
teachers and students. For example, Lark, a Singapore-based collaboration
suite initially developed by ByteDance as an internal tool to meet its own
exponential growth, began offering teachers and students unlimited video
conferencing time, auto-translation capabilities, real-time co-editing of
project work, and smart calendar scheduling, amongst other features. To
do so quickly and in a time of crisis, Lark ramped up its global server
infrastructure and engineering capabilities to ensure reliable connectivity.
Alibaba’s distance learning solution, DingTalk, had to prepare for a similar
influx: “To support large-scale remote work, the platform tapped Alibaba
Cloud to deploy more than 100,000 new cloud servers in just two hours last
month – setting a new record for rapid capacity expansion,” according to
DingTalk CEO, Chen Hang.
Some school districts are forming unique partnerships, like the one
between The Los Angeles Unified School District and PBS SoCal/KCET to
offer local educational broadcasts, with separate channels focused on
different ages, and a range of digital options. Media organizations such as
the BBC are also powering virtual learning; Bitesize Daily, launched on 20
April, is offering 14 weeks of curriculum-based learning for kids across the
UK with celebrities like Manchester City footballer Sergio Aguero teaching
some of the content.
What does this mean for the future of learning?
While some believe that the unplanned and rapid move to online learning
– with no training, insufficient bandwidth, and little preparation – will result
in a poor user experience that is unconducive to sustained growth, others
believe that a new hybrid model of education will emerge, with significant
benefits. “I believe that the integration of information technology in
education will be further accelerated and that online education will
eventually become an integral component of school education,“ says Wang
Tao, Vice President of Tencent Cloud and Vice President of Tencent
Education.
There have already been successful transitions amongst many universities.
For example, Zhejiang University managed to get more than 5,000 courses
online just two weeks into the transition using “DingTalk ZJU”. The Imperial
College London started offering a course on the science of coronavirus,
which is now the most enrolled class launched in 2020 on Coursera.
Many are already touting the benefits: Dr Amjad, a Professor at The
University of Jordan who has been using Lark to teach his students says,
“It has changed the way of teaching. It enables me to reach out to my
students more efficiently and effectively through chat groups, video
meetings, voting and also document sharing, especially during this
pandemic. My students also find it is easier to communicate on Lark. I will
stick to Lark even after coronavirus, I believe traditional offline learning and
e-learning can go hand by hand."
The challenges of online learning
There are, however, challenges to overcome. Some students without
reliable internet access and/or technology struggle to participate in digital
learning; this gap is seen across countries and between income brackets
within countries. For example, whilst 95% of students in Switzerland,
Norway, and Austria have a computer to use for their schoolwork, only 34%
in Indonesia do, according to OECD data.
In the US, there is a significant gap between those from privileged and
disadvantaged backgrounds: whilst virtually all 15-year-olds from a
privileged background said they had a computer to work on, nearly 25% of
those from disadvantaged backgrounds did not. While some schools and
governments have been providing digital equipment to students in need,
such as in New South Wales, Australia, many are still concerned that the
pandemic will widenthe digital divide.
Is learning online as effective?
For those who do have access to the right technology, there is evidence
that learning online can be more effective in a number of ways. Some
research shows that on average, students retain 25-60% more material
when learning online compared to only 8-10% in a classroom. This is
mostly due to the students being able to learn faster online; e-learning
requires 40-60% less time to learn than in a traditional classroom setting
because students can learn at their own pace, going back and re-reading,
skipping, or accelerating through concepts as they choose.
Nevertheless, the effectiveness of online learning varies amongst age
groups. The general consensus on children, especially younger ones, is
that a structured environment is required, because kids are more easily
distracted. To get the full benefit of online learning, there needs to be a
concerted effort to provide this structure and go beyond replicating a
physical class/lecture through video capabilities, instead, using a range of
collaboration tools and engagement methods that promote “inclusion,
personalization and intelligence”, according to Dowson Tong, Senior
Executive Vice President of Tencent and President of its Cloud and Smart
Industries Group.
Since studies have shown that children extensively use their senses to
learn, making learning fun and effective through use of technology is
crucial, according to BYJU's Mrinal Mohit. “Over a period, we have
observed that clever integration of games has demonstrated higher
engagement and increased motivation towards learning especially among
younger students, making them truly fall in love with learning”, he says.
A changing education imperative
It is clear that this pandemic has utterly disrupted an education system that
many assert was already losing its relevance. In his book, 21 Lessons for
the 21st Century, scholar Yuval Noah Harari outlines how schools continue
to focus on traditional academic skills and rote learning, rather than on
skills such as critical thinking and adaptability, which will be more important
for success in the future. Could the move to online learning be the catalyst
to create a new, more effective method of educating students? While some
worry that the hasty nature of the transition online may have hindered this
goal, others plan to make e-learning part of their ‘new normal’ after
experiencing the benefits first-hand.
The importance of disseminating knowledge is highlighted through
COVID-19
Major world events are often an inflection point for rapid innovation – a
clear example is the rise of e-commerce post-SARS. While we have yet to
see whether this will apply to e-learning post-COVID-19, it is one of the few
sectors where investment has not dried up. What has been made clear
through this pandemic is the importance of disseminating knowledge
across borders, companies, and all parts of society. If online learning
technology can play a role here, it is incumbent upon all of us to explore its
full potential.
