Current Development in Asian Education Sector

COVID-19 began upending education across APAC, forcing hundreds of millions of students to learn remotely.

FREMONT, CA: COVID-19 disrupted education throughout Asia-Pacific, forcing hundreds of millions of students to take classes online. Helping students learn at home and being motivated makes parents feel proud and grateful to their teachers and greatly appreciative of the technology that allows them to continue their education outside the classroom.

Google has made it a priority to assist education authorities and institutions in adapting. Organisations offering tools like Google Classroom and Read Along, collaborating with governments to make hardware accessible, ensuring teachers have the resources they require, and funding nonprofit organisations through Google's Distance Learning Fund.

When the pandemic was at its worst, just about 22 per cent of the schools the OECD surveyed wanted to resume teaching as usual. Nearly 60 per cent believe that hybrid learning, which combines in-person and online instruction, is the way of the future. But much work must be done before that strategy can be applied at the national or regional level.

Education and technology need to collaborate more in the future because learning is an activity rather than a place. Education is not an exchange of goods and services. It involves social interaction. The teacher who helped them when they needed it is what children would recall most about this catastrophe. Therefore, there have been significant technological and social developments in schooling.

If the affected pupils are ill-prepared for the job, there can be a huge economic consequence of the loss of hundreds of billions of dollars.

Organisations need to concentrate on better time management for kids, identify which pupils learn best in what context, and determine how they can support them. This is the only way to limit learning loss. More than just an hour in the classroom and an hour online make up a hybrid approach. To make learning possible, spaces and technology must be completely reconfigured. Most schools choose to use that model.

The use of technology to teach has been quite conventional. But because of social distance, there will always be capacity issues in schools, so organisations need new strategies for things like project-based learning and teamwork.

Access to technology is one. For instance, only about 20 per cent of students have access to computers at underprivileged schools in several regions of Southeast Asia. There is frequently a dearth of teaching tools in schools. They need to ensure that schools have online learning platforms for both classroom instruction and remote learning, and second, they need to ensure that teachers feel confident using and contributing to the platform.

Many teachers in other nations are reluctant to integrate technology into their classrooms.

Additionally, organisations need to promote greater teacher cooperation both domestically and abroad. Today, just 28 per cent of teachers manage classes collaboratively, although we know this is how novel concepts and methods develop.

It will take time to instil a tech-friendly culture in schools, but they are making progress. More than 80 per cent of the nations are dedicated to providing all instructors and students with secure internet connectivity.

The IT industry and governments have provided schools with software, hardware, and training resources. These actions will expand to lessen the effects of school closures or restrictions and reconsider how education will deliver education going forward.