Coronavirus, which raged in 2020, has made its own adjustments to the life of the whole world. People had to adapt to new conditions and rules that severely limited freedom, but also provided new opportunities for development. The world moved to new levels of technology development in the year of pandemic.
Coronavirus, which raged in 2020, has made its own adjustments to the life of the whole world. People had to adapt to new conditions and rules that severely limited freedom, but also provided new opportunities for development. The world moved to new levels of technology development in the year of pandemic.
One of the areas where technology has firmly established itself is education. During the active growth in the number of infected, all countries began to close educational institutions, and students, schoolchildren and teachers had to learn a new type of interaction - online learning.
By the end of March, according to UNESCO, school closures had affected more than 1.5 billion students in 165 countries. The first was China, where the disease came from, then Italy, and then almost the whole world switched not only to distance learning, but also to distance work.
But not all events have moved to the Internet format. In August International Youth Summer School was held in Reykjavik, Iceland, bringing together speakers, experts and young leaders on its territory. The main theme was «Future Skills for Workplace Sustainability: Preparing for Transition».
Among the topics discussed, the most important was the issue of obtaining an education during the coronavirus and global isolation. One of the speakers was Lucie Mairychová (Czech Republic), co-founder and managing director of Institut kariéry a rozvoje, a non-governmental organization dedicated to motivating young people to strive for new heights, make informed decisions, and pursue career growth through critical thinking and professional support.
Many experts believe that online training has given everyone the opportunity to gain more knowledge than they could have acquired through face-to-face training.
Lucie Mairychová said during her speech at the International Youth Summer School that everyone at school and university receives the same information, but the desires and actions of students who want to achieve more play an important role. Now people have more opportunities, thanks to the Internet and the media, to gain new knowledge. Distance education helps to pay attention to what is interesting to a particular person, taking into account his priorities.
However, there are a lot of problems, for example, poor technical equipment of schools, unpreparedness of teachers to learn via the Internet, and the lack of schoolchildren not only access to the network, but also computers, especially in low-income families.
Lucie also notes that young people in the Czech Republic do not want to become teachers, as this work is poorly paid, and there are difficulties in interacting with students who, due to global trends, believe that their voice and opinion are more important than the opinion of teachers. In this regard, during the pandemic, problems arose based on the fact that many teachers, due to their age, do not even know how to use e-mail. In the first month of study in regular schools, distance education practically stopped.
In some countries, the school year starts earlier than, for example, in Russia, so the governments has to decide whether to open schools and universities for students or leave remote education. Many experts have come to the conclusion that face-to-face training can be returned if certain precautions are taken, including wearing masks, maintaining a distance of 1.5 meters, washing hands regularly, and ventilating the premises.
Russia also decides to return students to educational institutions, despite the fact that the country is in fourth place in terms of the number of people infected with coronavirus.
Russian doctors are also in favor of abolishing distance learning. In their opinion, it is not COVID that will threaten students, but the standard ARVI. However, the likelihood of closing schools and universities remains, everything will depend on the epidemic situation.
The United States, in turn, decided to stay on distance education due to the risk of a second wave of the virus and infecting more people.
Despite the drawbacks of a hasty transition to online schooling, scientists and researchers are finding positive prospects for education. Experts believe this is an opportunity to experiment and test new models of education. Schoolchildren learned to independently plan their studies, and teachers mastered technology.
Anna Demina
