Frontlist | How Covid-19 pandemic is reshaping the education industry

2020 was a year of change, adaptation, adoption, and evolvement even in the world of education. Having been hit by unprecedented times, schools and colleges were unsure about opening their premises which caused a disruption to the academic schedule and hindered the students’ learning graph. The lockdown forced the education institutes to innovate in order to sustain. As a solution, the education institutes were suddenly made to shift to the online mode of education without proper infrastructure is in place. But that is what learning and adaption are about. Covid-19 accelerated the adoption of technology in education to create more opportunities. Online learning allowed students to work through the learning material at their own pace and time. As more and more institutes moved to this model, they did not have to invest heavily in a suite of new tools as video-conferencing tools such as Zoom and Teams and online-learning platforms like Amity Online have been implemented to help support the shift to online learning.

Future of education in 2021

As we move ahead in 2021, online will continue to be an integral part of the education model in India. Even though we have got vaccines for Covid-19, the education institutes will look at including digital learning in their teaching model to maintain the status quo. With the economic uncertainties, the pressure on the workforce to perform more with higher value and contribution has become a common expectation. In recent times, the need to skill, reskill and upskill has been foremost. The value is not necessarily in the material that the student has just learned, but in the discussion that they have afterward among themselves and with the teacher. The Covid-19 pandemic has also demonstrated that people can be educated anywhere regardless of their geographical location if they are creative about it. The biggest victory for the education sector during the pandemic has been breaking the geographical barriers and overcoming infrastructural challenges to ensure that the students’ learning is not hampered.

Change in the job market

The other biggest change brought about by the pandemic has been to the job market. As we witnessed an economic slowdown, the working executives were forced to think outside the box. They were given an opportunity to self-assess and understand the areas for self-growth in their career trajectory. This led to a rise in applications for executive programmes as people understood the need for constant learning. The Covid-19 pandemic also made the educators re-think the course curriculum. Modules on lessons and consequences of the pandemic, better management of digital transformation and how to use data to make decisions were introduced. The institutes adopted methods such as guest lectures and webinars by renowned personalities to give students a first-hand experience of a dynamic business environment.

Rise in unconventional courses

There was a rise in the popularity of unconventional courses such as supply chain management, data analytics, strategic management, among others. Many corporates understood the value that these courses add to the quality of employees' work and moved on to add these modules in their leadership development programmes. The job layoffs meant that retained employees had to take on multiple roles, hence, there was an increasing demand for new-age modules. Corporate-sponsored and custom-made management development programmes witnessed an upsurge as companies began to invest in their employees. As more and more institutes adopted the digital learning medium, education has become more personalized and interactive. Moving forward, technology will continue to play an integral role in education. Therefore, academic institutions will have to continue to focus on refining how technology is used as part of the student experience whether they are in the classroom, at home, or videoconferencing in from a different state altogether. Read More: Project to promote hygienic practices in schools : Sikkim Source: India Today