Education in the new normal

2020 has seen an unprecedented change in how we view traditional occupations and activities that required close interpersonal proximity. And at the forefront of this mandatory change in lifestyle and habits is the education sector. Given the restrictions imposed by the advent of the Covid 19 pandemic, the idea of what education, how it’s imparted and how it is imbibed have all undergone a radical change. Gone are traditional classrooms and large sprawling campuses full of students and teachers pursuing knowledge and sharing ideas. Instead, as technology leads the way, the digital classroom in a virtual environment is increasingly replacing the brick and mortar predecessor where devices and the internet have become desks and the blackboards of yore.

The idea of online education isn’t exactly a new concept however.  It has been around in one form or the other since the birth of the TV, but it is with the emergence of the internet that this concept started to materialize into a feasible mode of expanding the reach and scope of education. From it’s slow start that coincided with the increasing uptake of broadband internet technologies, it’s now predicted to grow to a $54 billion industry by 2027. Given how the pandemic has made humanity realize that education needs to be disaster proofed for the future, this number is probably a very conservative estimate in the post Covid 19 world.

Parents, teachers, students, schools, and college managements are among the many disparate stakeholders who have witnessed a seismic shift in how they connect the emerging realities of education in a post Covid world. Devices like cellphones which were hitherto used to for tasks like communications and entertainment are now also serving as critical vehicles to impart education with. How devices connect students to teachers and the new problems that are manifesting as a result are issues that will have to be dealt with if we are to make this work.