IN FOCUS | Issue No. 2 | August-December 2020

Education Disrupted, Re-imagined
T
his pandemic has done the
impossible: It has changed
the way we teach and learn practically
overnight. Throughout April
2020, millions of learners around
the world could no longer sit in
the classroom. Education systems
have responded to this unprecedented
challenge with speed,
adaptability, and imagination.
Learning hasn’t ground to a halt.
But it has changed utterly. Obviously,
we can’t go back. How do
we move forward? Why should
we not work together to reward
and encourage customized education
from pre-K to post-grad level?
Prior to COVID-19,
‘schools’ were simply buildings
that grouped people according
to certain criteria. Higher education
globally should set a goal
by eliminating school mentality.
But what exactly do we replace
it with? Our ability to recover
and progress in the decades after
this crisis depends entirely
on our ability to make higher
education more personalized,
more flexible, and more holistic.
The ‘new normal’ will
be shaped by the choices made
in the next few years by governments,
higher education leaders,
academics, and a generation of
students and parents. With its
dramatic disruption of the global
economy —including institutions
of higher education —the corona
crisis is accelerating rapidly. Education
must accept that the best
thing we can do for humanity is to
develop individuals, whose success
in life is being outliers, not
conformists. dependent on If
COVID-19 has taught us anything,
it is how rapidly we can
act when faced with necessity.
Governments should ensure
stability for higher education
in situations in the near term, prioritizing
public funding for education
over other sections, but making this
financial support conditional on tangible
reforms being implemented
to ensure innovation is rewarded.
Automation, artificial intelligence,
rising nationalism, rapidly changing
employer needs, and a growing
global middle class demanding
quality education for their children
were already poised to reshape how
higher education would be delivered.
We need to eliminate schools
whereas private sector investors
should also step up and realize that
investments in education can profit
both society and those taking risks.
Sadly but true, those from
disadvantageous backgrounds remained
shut out when the school
shut down. Those from privileged
backgrounds found their
way around closed school doors
to alternative learning opportunities,
supported by their parents,
and eager to learn. The COVID-19
pandemic has not stopped at national
borders and affected people
regardless of nationality, level
of education, income, or gender.
It is the nature of our collective
and systemic responses
to the disruptions that will determine
how we are affected
by them. But that has not been
true for its consequences, which
have affected the most vulnerable.
As the world becomes increasingly
interconnected, so do
the risks we face. But as these
inequities are amplified in this
time of crisis, this moment also
holds the possibility that we won’t
return to the status quo when
things return to “normal.” Education
has been no exception.
Education requires leaders
who tackle institutional structures
that too often are built the interests
and habits of educators and
administrators rather than learners.
We need leaders who are sincere
about social change, imaginative
in policymaking, and capable
of using the trust they earn to deliver
effective reforms. Schools need
to develop first-class humans, not
second-class robots. This is not accomplished
just by letting a thousand
flowers bloom; it requires a
carefully crafted enabling environment
that can unleash teachers’
and schools’ ingenuity and build
capacity for change. But to transform
schooling at scale, we need a
radical, alternative vision of what
students need to learn, but also
effective learning environments in
which these knowledge, skills, attitudes,
and values are developed.
The bottom line is, if we
want to stay ahead of technological
developments, we have
to find and refine the qualities
that are unique to our humanity
and that complement with
- not compete with - what we
have created in our computers.