The COVID-19 pandemic has changed education forever. This is how

• 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 levels in their rate of infection with COVID-19, globally more than 1.2 billion children in 186 countries are currently affected by school closures due to the pandemic. In Denmark, children under 11 are returning to nurseries and schools after they were initially closed on March 12, but in South Korea students are responding to their teachers' appeals online.

With this sudden shift away from teaching in many parts of the world, some are questioning whether the adoption of online education will continue beyond the pandemic and how such a shift would affect the global education market.

Even before COVID-19, there was high growth and adoption in education technology, with global edtech investment reaching $18.66 billion in 2019 and the overall online education market expected to reach $350 billion by 2025. Whether it's language apps, virtual tutoring, video conferencing tools or online learning software, there has been a significant increase in usage since COVID-19.

How is the education sector responding to COVID-19?

In response to significant demand, many online education platforms are offering free access to their services, including platforms such as BYJU’S, a Bangalore-based educational technology and online tutoring company founded in 2011 that is now the most valued edtech company globally. According to Mrinal Mohit, the company's chief operating officer, BYJU's has seen a 200% increase in new students using its product since announcing free live courses on its Think and Learn app.

Tencent Classroom, meanwhile, has been in heavy use since mid-February after the Chinese government ordered a quarter of a billion full-time students to continue their studies through online platforms. The result was the largest "online movement" in education history with approximately 730,000, or 81% of K-12 students, taking courses through the Tencent K-12 Online School in Wuhan.

Other companies are strengthening their capabilities to provide a one-stop shop for teachers and students. For example, Lark, a Singapore-based collaboration suite originally developed by ByteDance as an internal tool for its own exponential growth, has begun offering teachers and students unlimited video conferencing time, automatic translation capabilities, and real-time collaborative editing of project work. , and a smart scheduling calendar, among other features. To do this quickly and in times of crisis, Lark has expanded its global server infrastructure and engineering capabilities to ensure reliable connectivity.

Alibaba's distance learning solution, DingTalk, has had to prepare for a similar influx: “To support large-scale remote work, the platform last month used Alibaba Cloud to deploy more than 100,000 new cloud servers in just two hours – setting a new record for capacity expansion speed ,” said DingTalk CEO, Chen Hang.

Some school districts are creating unique partnerships, such as the one between The Los Angeles Unified School District and PBS SoCal/KCET, which offers local educational broadcasts with separate channels aimed at different age groups and a variety of digital options. Media organizations such as the BBC also support virtual learning; Bitesize Daily, which launched on April 20, offers 14 weeks of curriculum-based learning for children across the UK, with celebrities such as Manchester City footballer Sergio Aguero teaching some of the content.

What does this mean for the future of learning?

While some believe that an unplanned and rapid transition to online learning – with no training, insufficient bandwidth and little preparation – will result in a poor user experience that is not conducive 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 part of school education," said Wang Tao, Vice President of Tencent Cloud and Vice President of Tencent Education.

Successful transitions have already taken place between many universities. For example, Zhejiang University was able to get more than 5,000 courses online just two weeks after the transition using "DingTalk ZJU". Imperial College London has started offering a course in 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 uses Lark to teach his students, says: “It has changed the way we teach. It allows me to reach my students more efficiently and effectively through chat groups, video conferencing, polling and also document sharing, especially during this pandemic. My students also found it easier to communicate on Lark. I will stick with Lark even after the coronavirus, I believe that traditional offline learning and e-learning can go hand in hand."

The challenges of online learning

However, there are challenges to overcome. Some students without reliable access to the Internet and/or technology have difficulty participating in digital education; this difference is seen between countries and between income groups within countries. While in Switzerland, Norway and Austria, for example, 95% of students have a computer for school work, in Indonesia only 34% have one, according to OECD data.

In the US, there is a significant gap between people from privileged and disadvantaged backgrounds: while virtually all 15-year-olds from privileged backgrounds reported having a computer to work on, nearly 25% of those from disadvantaged backgrounds did not. While some schools and governments are providing digital equipment to students in need, such as in New South Wales, Australia, many still fear the pandemic will widen the digital divide.

Is learning online as effective?

For those with access to the right technology, there is evidence that online learning can be more effective in many ways. Some research shows that, on average, students retain 25-60% more material when taught online compared to only 8-10% in the classroom. This is mostly because students can learn faster online; E-learning requires 40-60% less learning time than in a traditional classroom setting because students can learn at their own pace, going back and re-reading, skipping or speeding through concepts as they choose.

However, the effectiveness of online learning varies between age groups. The general consensus regarding children, especially younger ones, is that a structured environment is required because children are more easily distracted. To reap the full benefits of online learning, there needs to be a concerted effort to provide this structure and go beyond replicating a physical classroom/lecture via video capabilities, instead using a range of collaboration tools and engagement methods that support "embedded, personalized" . and intelligence," says Dowson Tong, Tencent's senior executive vice president and president of its Cloud and Smart Industries Group.

Since studies have shown that children use their senses to a large extent to learn, it is essential to make learning fun and effective using technology, according to BYJU's Mrinal Mohit. “Over a period of time, we observed that the clever integration of games demonstrated higher engagement and increased motivation to learn, especially among younger students, making them really fall in love with learning,” he says.

A changing education imperative

It is clear that this pandemic has completely disrupted the education system, which many argue has already lost 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 skills such as critical thinking and adaptability that will be more important for success in the future. . Could the shift to online learning be a catalyst for creating a new, more effective method of educating students? While some fear that the rushed nature of the move to the Internet may have hindered this goal, others plan to make e-learning part of their "new normal" after experiencing the benefits firsthand.

Major world events are often an inflection point for rapid innovation – the post-SARS rise of e-commerce is a clear example. While it remains to be seen whether this will apply to e-learning post-Covid-19, it is one of the few sectors where investment has not dried up. This pandemic has clearly shown the importance of spreading 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.