The Future of Education Post-Covid

Between November 17, 2019 when it first broke out and December 31 when it was officially reported to the World Health Organisation (WHO), no one hardly suspected that a local disease outbreak in the Wuhan City in the province of China was on a threat mission globally. Within a short span of three months, it graduated from being a local epidemic to a pandemic in the brand name of Corona Infectious Virus 2019 (COVID-19) in February 11, 2020. In fact, the prediction never came.

When it eventually hit Nigeria on February 27 as just one index case as usual and later gradually ascending into a rising curve, people became more surprised: How an event of this worrying magnitude had not made the list of the traditional annual new year prophecies of the ‘men of God’ for the year 2020! As at June, 13, 2020, there are about 225,126 confirmed cases in Africa and over seven million worldwide. Out of this statistics, Nigeria account for 15,181 positioning the giant of Africa 52^nd in the world in terms of covid-19 infections.

The bad Impact of COVID-19 on Education

Despite all efforts made by government across nations, the pandemic has claimed thousands of human lives and destroyed economy. Yet the figures and damages are still counting and mounting. Following the restriction of movement and imposition of the social distancing rule, business, religious and other daily activities were suspended. Among the most heavily affected sector was education. Examination already scheduled were indefinitely cancelled. The enthusiasm of prospective students enlisted for admission were shattered. Access to the classroom for the traditional teaching and learning was outlawed. While most governments sustain the payment of salaries to the administrators, teachers and other workers in the public schools, private investors and workers in this sector faced serious hard times.   Even when all other sectors are being re-opened, schools at all levels were still exempted.

This ugly development has brought along with it new experiences and realities for the parents, teachers, proprietors, government and other stakeholders in the education sector which may permanently define the future of education in the post-covid era.

Home schooling

Schools especially for children in nursery and early primary classes may witness low resumption or enrolment. This is at the instance of the home-schooling which many parents have always considered impossible prior to the crises of covid. However, it became a forced option for most homes as parents had opportunity to develop schemes and engaged their children during the lockdown. This experience in the accounts of many educated full house wives have been tremendous and rewarding.

Apart from being a means of conserving the huge financial resources committed to enrolling these children in schools, it has given them opportunity to be close to these kids and strengthen the parent-children relationship which is most important for them at these formative ages. Through this home tutoring effort, they have been able to understand the strength of these kiddies, discover their weaknesses and even review their own knowledge.

During the lockdown, subject schemes and timetables for home teaching were circulated via the social media and a lot of educative resources and materials were also shared free over the internet. These had really empowered most parents and emboldened their resolves to discontinue enrolling their children at the foundational classes and sustain the teach-your-child approach. Therefore, home-schooling, a practice not common in our own conservative society, may be the new trend post covid.

TechEdu and e-Learning

If there is nothing that differentiated between nations and societies in terms of the impact of covid during the lockdown, it was technology. While the entire schools form the primary to tertiary were completely crippled in a country where both the power and internet are unreliable like Nigeria, countries like South korea were able to sustain academic programmes in the graduate schools through online learning. However, in the world generally, there was no pre-university educations anywhere. Investors in private education in Nigeria could have achieved the same, at least in the universities but the pandemic brought a strange circumstance that no one could have been pre-empted. It has therefore open every eyes to realities and the crucial role of e-learning and technology-driven education.

Education in the future shall be technologically competitive. There shall be e-learning revolution. Hence, the age of schools with no computers, students with no e-mails and teachers that are not technologically compliant might have gone forever. In fact, only schools that can sustain learning without physical teacher-student interaction are the ideal schools of the future in post covid.

Therefore, the government and private bodies should begin the race of investment in the new educational revolution the world is about to witness. In the emerging schools, libraries shall be digitalized and books can be accessed via school website; students’ biodata and fingerprints are captured on enrolment; lectures and seminars would be conducted in virtual classrooms; examinations are admissible online and assignments are given and submitted via e-mails correspondences. As this system would engender less physical interaction, more transparency and less abuse are concomitantly expected.

E-Administration

Administration is an integral part of education management. Regular board meetings among the stakeholders in this sector to discuss the academic progress, examination time table and result computation and approval is possibly the most critical components of any serious administration. However, due to situational challenges such as time factor or absence of some personnel who are key role players affect regular schedule of such meetings.

Prior to Covid, it was not popular to explore internet applications such as zoom, webex, skype and others to hold meetings, symposia, webinars etc. for critical deliberations among the stakeholders across different cities and regions. Most surprisingly, people hardly know that the common social media platform like WhatsApp is good for audio-visual conferencing!

Many of these were the new experiences and realities during the lockdown. For the first time, some universities successfully used online platforms to hold their senate meetings while the virus confined the professors to their homes. Some conferences are already schedules to come up in some couple of months where researchers across the world would be presenting their papers and interacting through these virtual rooms. This was unprecedented. Such privileges used to be available to the few who could not make it to the rendezvous. That method was less popular and mostly done via Skype only. At the instance of the challenges of restriction posed by the ravaging pandemic, newer applications were developed and some old ones became more famous.

This announces a new phase in the future of education post covid. Making provisions for virtual meetings can remove excuses for delay during emergency; save time for regular and effective deliberations and prevent body-body transmissions of infections. 

Distant Learning and Freelance Teaching

Freelance teaching online and distance learning services are not typical practices known with many individual educators and educational institutions in Nigeria. Every disappointment they say is a blessing. The idleness and hunger that covid brought to the fore by the stay-at-home order created a survival instinct in many brilliant educationists and teachers. While thinking of the alternatives, they got to realize the tremendous benefits of the existing platforms like Facebook and YouTube.

Through these social media, they can teach free, get fame and make money for themselves through the subscriptions of their audience worldwide. In post covid, there would be more waves of such. Without necessarily hosting a website, individuals as well as private or public educational institutions can hatch out from their yolk of operating within their localities and reach out to teach, advertise and measure their competitiveness in a global scale. There are greater chances in the coming days in post covid that doors of international recognitions may open for many exceptional instructors in local schools which may spell a new page in their future careers.

Conclusions

There is nothing more obvious in the forthcoming post covid era than the reality that educational system would be more digitalized and technology-driven.  The social distancing order catalysed by COVID-19 has created a revolution that is irreversible. It would always be a factor in the future teaching and learning processes. Just as the countries were unified in their experiences of the pandemic, they would to a greater extent be unified in their approach to ensuring that educational institutions are not completely shut down because of a physical barrier between the teachers and the learners.  To a country like Nigeria, this is like a race already announced ahead of time. The smart lame can win the trophy if he starts in the earnest.