Education and the pandemic

With all the restrictions in place due to the ongoing pandemic, our society has been evolving

towards a more socially isolated culture. Due to this many of the systems that supported our way of

life have been hit hard. Systems such as employment, medical care, and commerce that have been

not adequately equipped to handle the pressures of a pandemic are being affected the most. Here

we will be taking a look at the case of education and how it's been affected since the pandemic.

Education in both schools and colleges have now transitioned to a more online form of learning.

Coursework is now mostly converted to a form that can be completed online without any form of

physical communication. But it is important to consider that not all of the population has a computer

for which they can use to access their classes. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and

Development is one of many organizations advocating to increase access to open free, online

educational resources and digital learning platforms for teachers and students. According to data

from the OECD, in Denmark, Slovenia, Norway, Poland, Lithuania, Iceland, Austria, Switzerland, and

the Netherlands, over 95% of students reported having a computer to use for their work. Only 34%

in Indonesia did. In the US, virtually every 15-year-old from a privileged background said they had a

computer to work, but nearly a quarter of those from disadvantaged backgrounds did not (OECD). It

is also safe to assume that in the case of children who are getting to know technology, the power

and privilege of parents would also come into play. Not every parent has the level of digital literacy

necessary or time and resources to help their kids shift to online learning. Some teachers, whose

courses would require physical means of communication are starting to give automatic A's to
students due to the limited time frame given to them to transition to an online form of learning.

Thus if the teachers are not able to teach remotely, all of their students would miss out on months

worth of curriculum leading to a sizable group of already disadvantaged students to be left out and

fall even farther behind. But on the bright side, Some educational institutions (including the

University at Buffalo) are loaning out computers to students who don't have them so they would

have no difficulty accessing their classes.

Another factor to consider while making use of online learning is the internet capabilities of the

students as well as the hosting capabilities and privacy concerns of the learning platform. As per the

World Bank's data, Countries such as the United States, Canada, and Australia have about 75% of

their population online, whereas India, China, and Indonesia have less than half of their population

online (World Bank). But even with countries having a large population online, people still face

bandwidth issues taking an exam or viewing a class which can lead to a lot of disruption. And, it is

also important to note that once learning platforms such as Zoom for conferencing are overloaded

with a huge number of users due to the pandemic, their servers would start to slow down and would

also need better infrastructure. And as a platform such as Zoom gains in popularity its flaws and

privacy concerns would be more apparent. Each Zoom call has a randomly generated ID number

between 9 and 11 digits long that’s used by participants to gain access to a meeting. Researchers

have found that these meeting IDs are easy to guess, even though brute force, allowing anyone to

get into meetings (Verge).

Thus it is safe to say that this pandemic is giving tech extensive insights as to what human

development and learning look like, enabling it to potentially shift from just content distribution to

changing and altering relationships with teachers, independence, and personalization. With moving

the world's students online exposing deep inequities in the education system as discussed above, it
causes a great digital divide between the kids that have devices and reliable internet connections

and those who don't. Thus it is important to come up with strategies and structural/technological

improvements to be made to ensure the students get a great education for the sake of humanity.

Courses that need physical means of interaction, as well as others, should have a backup plan in a

case in the future a similar pandemic arises. Every educational institution, in my opinion, should

have an extra module with their classes that teach the students how to use the various technologies

that are utilized for online learning. These institutions should also be provided with laptops that they

could loan out to students who do not have them in case. Courses should have an alternative or a

modified curriculum that would come into place in such a situation that can provide a seamless

transition for students into online learning without any hiccups. We all know that by the UN's right

to internet access, all people must be able to access the Internet in order to exercise and enjoy their

rights to freedom of expression and opinion and other fundamental human rights. Thus it's

important that the ISP's (Internet service providers) reduce the cost of having a reliable internet

connection that would not cause any kind of bandwidth issues, or provide internet connections to

families with children who don't have access to the internet during the pandemic. Another

important measure to take would be to improve the infrastructure i.e.) the hosting power or servers,

of learning platforms. This is key to providing better education as during troubling times, learning

platforms and video conferencing applications such as zoom would receive a huge influx of new

users that are mainly students and would have to keep up with the increased workload and upkeep

on their hosting servers. These platforms would also need to ramp up their security and privacy

measures. With a larger number of users than before, more amounts of private conversations and

data are at stake. Following these strategies would ensure a much more trouble-free a smooth

online learning experience for students.

education system. Such a system would be pretty hard on teachers as they have to be removed from

each other because teaching is such a human endeavor. Education is now moving online and new

opportunities are being advertised and made available for students but this switch to online learning

has also pointed out the importance of public school systems for lower-income families, and the

challenges the switch presents for families, special needs students, as well as staff and students

across the board. At this point, it might be too early to say how the students and teachers will cope

with online learning as they figure out how it works. Such a system comes with many challenges but

it gives new opportunities to students and teachers to try out different modes of learning. It is also is

possible that once the pandemic settles down, we may see a continued increase in education

systems using online platforms for study aids, as well as students embracing online education for

their higher learning degree programs.

1) Klang, Mathias; Murray, Andrew (2005). Human Rights in the Digital Age. Routledge. p. 1.

2) “PISA Database” OECD, http://www.oecd.org/pisa/data/ Accessed 05/14/2020

3) “World Development Indicators” World Bank,

https://datacatalog.worldbank.org/dataset/world-development-indicators Accessed

05/14/2020