Amid the health, socio-economic and even political challenges brought about by COVID-19, the reality everywhere is that individual and community life have evolved. In many parts of the world, including Malaysia, the resurgence of infections is renewing the urgency for changes and solutions that will enable humanity to both survive and thrive in the next normal.
INTI alumna Natalia Bong presses the need for education to cater to individual capabilities rather than standardised systems.
At every level of society, strategic and hopeful conversations are being shared not only for the short term fixes needed for the immediate health and safety of communities, but also the evolution of goals, mind-sets and processes that will foster mankind’s desire to keep moving forward.
As essentially the most people oriented industry of all, education is as dynamic as the students, teachers and communities it serves, and is foremost in need of an evolution.
At the pandemic’s height in April, 90% of total enrolled learners globally were affected, with 190 countries closing education institutions to curb the spread of the disease.1 While this reduced to about 50% in early September, the immediate and long term impact to this generation of learners is already being felt.
Having had the opportunity to consult with students, fresh graduates, fellow educators and industry on UNESCO’s Futures of Education agenda, the following four themes emerged as keystones for education change.
Tan Lin Nah, CEO, INTI, urges the need for greater collaboration among industry, academia and regulators in reinventing education.
- Access to continuous education
Access to continuous education was a significant challenge, especially for marginalised and rural communities during the lockdown. Despite technology’s mitigating role for some learners, the lack of universal access to devices, infrastructures or even the knowledge to use technologies emphasised the disparity between students from different social backgrounds.
Before all else, strategies to ensure access to continuous education – even during challenging times – must top the education agenda. This should include alternative safe spaces or methods of study, access and knowledge of technologies as a key 21st century competency, and extended protection for under aged learners who face increasing risks during economic downturns.
While we look to improving the quality of education systems, it is more crucial that we ensure that all our children and youth are receiving at least the foundations of education, as they shoulder the hopes of a better future for their families and communities – especially those from marginalised groups.
- Education’s true purpose
For many learners, education has become a tick box on the road to securing employment. Even then, education’s capability to prepare young talents for the demands of today’s workplace has become an increasing point of contention.
While the pursuance of knowledge and skills are paramount to human development, the end goal should not only be job security. This is especially significant with Gen Zs – the predominant age group of learners today – being highly informed self-starters, who are also more socially conscious than any other generation before them.
Education’s real aims are to facilitate the development of individual and collective capacities, and to build up awareness and capabilities in safeguarding the planet – culturally, economically, environmentally and socially.
Utopian as the idea may seem to battle hardened veterans of regulatory requirements and measurable learning outcomes, the bottom line for education is to make lives better.
As a start to refining education’s purpose, the gap between student capabilities at lower and higher levels of learning needs to be bridged. Education must enable learners to experience continuous growth rather than disparate expectations at different stages of education and life.
There is also a greater urgency to include emotional intelligence and mental wellbeing in education transformation. Beyond knowledge and skills, solving problems with empathy, emotional-awareness and self-care are necessary in a world that requires resilience and adaptability.
- Shifting focus from grades to individual development
In giving life to education’s true purpose, shifting the focus from grades to competency-based and student-led learning is a better means of developing capabilities and interests.
Emphasising personal development and understanding, rather than memorisation and cramming, will help students to realise what they do well and how they can make a difference in their lives and for those around them.
Educators, regulators and even industry need to look at reinventing learning environments where there is less fear of failure, and more focus on skills, attitudes and enjoyment in the journey of discovery.
While this will take time as it requires an almost 180 degree shift from existing, traditional forms of education and the requirements of hiring, such a system will better prepare students to discover and pursue their aspirations.
- Empowerment of educators
While we speak of front liners, we must acknowledge our teachers and lecturers who have continued to serve despite the challenges of this time.
Presently, there is insufficient emphasis on the development of educators, especially in keeping up with a generation that has access to everything through the push of a button.
Access to better resources, tools and technologies are a given in their development. More importantly, educators must be empowered to shift from teaching to facilitating, from providing information to challenging perspectives, from setting examinations to coaching and mentoring capabilities that last beyond examination halls.
With virtual and borderless learning spaces becoming the new norm, fostering an ecosystem where educators are inspired and trained to learn, create and facilitate ideas and skills that reflect today’s trends should be foremost in their development process.
All smiles from the participants in a physical distancing group photograph after INTI’s Focus Group Consultation.
Rather than rigid learning outcomes, education should be about providing learners the scientific, artistic and humanitarian knowledge to improve the environments they live in, and equip them to solve the problems of day to day life. Only once learners are empowered to do so can education be said to be truly effective.