Education 2047 #Blog 07 (25 JUL 2021)
Online learning has emerged as a Hobson's choice, as the virus has crippled the education systems world over. Interestingly, internet facilitated system has been there for around two decades now but wasn't getting mainstreamed due to the predictable, stiff resistance from academic fraternity and also due to limitations in access to internet. It would have taken another 5 to 10 years in the natural course, but the pandemic pushed the academicians to the wall who weren't prepared to read what was written on it!
What we have seen in the pandemic is forced completion of education, learning wasn't in focus for the most and has been left for the students to prove themselves. As a matter of fact, learning hasn't been ever the focus, handing out degrees for jobs has been. Imparting of knowledge with instructions and examining its retention is what education has meant largely, with insignificant focus on honing of skills and abilities to thrive in the professions/ jobs. Needless to say approach, alignment, consistency, relevance, outcomes etc. of education have been skated over all along and changes effected, are largely correcting the past than rejigging systems- aligned with the future.
Education has been the trusted vehicle in industrial society for upwardly movement, and parents have seen investment in children's education as a passport to prosperity. As a welfare measure, governments all over the world have been investing in education of its citizens, through the institutions created/ regulated by them and challenged by goals/ norms like Millennium Development (MDG), Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) etc. But all these have been for the (teacher-centric) times when teachers and books were the authoritative sources of knowledge and a learner had to reach them out, through academic institutions, to complete the education; but the educational landscape has been comprehensively disrupted in the last two decades.
In the wake of IT revolution, educational resources have expanded massively to include digital books impregnated with hyperlinks, recorded lectures by teachers, virtual laboratories, self-assessment platforms, learner analytics etc. and access to them has been democratized. The internet has taken education out of the classrooms- even the students on the first bench and also the teachers are learning online now. The resources are available- anytime and anywhere to everyone; thus, challenging the teachers, institutions, curricula, examination etc, as they weakly extrapolate themselves in the age of internet and need to be reconfigured.
Internet supports 'learning' and in a massive way- overcoming the spatio-temporal-lingual barriers, but we are stuck at 'education'. We have used online/ internet resources to plug the gap created by the pandemic, basically to complete the courses and thus, the 'education'. In the pandemic, we have seen video-conferencing platforms emerge as a workhorse to facilitate substitution of the classroom or their virtual re-creation. PPTs, PDFs, Word Documents, videos and other material have been transferred like never before, to complete the courses. Technology has also been used to conduct 'high-tech proctored' examinations resorted to stop examinees from cheating (yet no student failing!). Has this all helped in learning?
'Education' is prescriptive and must be taken as offered; online 'learning', on the other hand, offers a range of choices to a learner to create one's learning pathway. Teaching subjects that an academic institution has strength in and resources at its command is 'education'; on the contrary, facilitating access to ubiquitous resources, and mentoring enables 'learning'. Increasing the enrolment ratio has been a concern for conventional education, but online learning opens avenues for anyone interested in learning, making the targets of enrolment meaningless.
Internet combined with host of other technologies has the potential to support 'Adaptive, Personalized & Purposed (APP) Learning' and this should not be expended in peddling education (that is prescriptive and restrictive). This would mean change in role of teachers, repositioning of classrooms, focus on experiential learning, customizable curriculum, open book examinations and other things- targeted at new age learning. Luckily, for good teachers, online learning is the best thing to happen; they can now be reached by students of institutions other than theirs or even in other locations anywhere in the world. Likewise, the disinterested students forced to sit in their classroom can find an online teacher of a subject that genuinely interests them, anywhere on the internet. Of course, the practical and experiential learning, on a low pedestal now, would also have to be reinvigorated and repositioned, to drive and complement the online courses. It is here that a teacher would be indispensable but reincarnated to perform the role of counselor, navigator, pathfinder, mentor, and guide- rolled into one.
It is not that concern on education eclipsing learning, is being raised for the first time. American business magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794-1877) had remarked, "If I had learned education, I would not have had time to learn anything else". Albert Einstein squared it a few decades later by observing, "The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education". With the attributes and versatility of online mode, education can be recast and offered as learning- the 'old normal'- as in the pre-industrialized society! This shift from education to learning, will be accelerated by technologies like artificial intelligence and brain-computer interface, supported by other emerging technologies; the growth in number of Edutech companies in the last decade is a pointer to the system leaning towards- hAPPy learning!
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Author is an Adviser with All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) on deputation from Technology Information, Forecasting & Assessment Council (TIFAC).
Views are personal.
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Previous blogs
Rejigging Universities with a 'COVID' Moment
Reimagining Engineering Education for 'Techcelerating' Times
Uprighting STEM Education with 7x24 Labs
Dismantling Macaulay's Schools with 'Online' Support
Moving Towards Education Without Examinations
Disruptive Technologies in Education and Challenges in its Governance