The coronavirus pandemic is affecting all walks of life. Education is no exception. Covid-19 has accelerated the use of technology in education. There have been educational disruptions, with schools moving from face-to-face classroom teaching to online teaching, and then blended learning. Covid-19 has pushed educators to rethink how to lead and harness the available resources in difficult times.
Elets digitalLEARNING magazine organized a webinar on “Rebooting the School Education System in times of Corona”. The webinar highlighted the way the school education sector can review from the crisis. Dr Ravi Gupta, CEO & Editor-in-Chief, Elets Technomedia welcomed the eminent speakers.
SK Rathore, Founder and Chairman of Stanfort Group of Schools, said “This is a very tough time for everyone specially school leaders. The new session has started but the exams are not completed till now. It will be a huge challenge for all of us to assess and upgrade our children to the next level and how to start the next session. Many teachers are facing issues but will have to find out solutions to tackle the crisis.”
“The best thing is parents have time for children. We are providing life skill lessons for students”, he added.
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In our country, only digital classrooms will not work, we have to provide content to students, he said.
Revathi Srinivasan, Director, Singhania schools said “These are tough times but every setback opens up opportunities. It is for us to open our mind and think differently. Everyone has to rethink education. We have to look into the crisis and bring positives out of it. We have to redraw boundaries of education. The board has opened up new things for students.”
“We must start innovations in education and the system is going with educators. Education has started witnessing classrooms without any walls, which is much appreciated. It is a one to one equation for students, “ she added.
The equality gap is widening due to the pandemic and we must start working on the PPP model. The access and quality of access must be taken care of, she said.
Srisha Mohandoss, Director of Education at SSVM Institutions said “ The entire crisis has brought us to a different stage of mind as pandemic has taken over the world. We need to see the positive and negative outcomes of the scenario. We are helping students during the virtual classrooms. We need to mobilize our resources. We need to adapt new tools and have to make communication easier.”
At this point schools are going through a mid-way crisis and we need support from all the stakeholders to overcome the pandemic, she added.
Rajesh Vasudevan, Head of School, Manchester International school said “Technology has always been part of the schools and we have to navigate it during the pandemic. Assessment is not everything and for teachers it’s always teaching, learning and assessing. The parents are seeing a new phase and face of children. Parents have taken the active role of teaching students at home. Learning is beyond the classroom.”
