How Covid-19 “coronavirus” affected Education

What is Covid-19?

The COVID-19 also known as coronavirus. It is a virus that has not been earlier identified. Like many other emerging pathogens, it came from animals to us humans and has caused this current pandemic.

The COVID-19 virus is a highly contagious respiratory pathogen and it is far more deadly than the common flu virus.

The COVID-19 pandemic has made life miserable in major aspects of society, and most importantly schools are affected by this pandemic. For example, how the closures of schools last spring impacted the overall achievements of students and how rapidly the mode of learning changed to online platforms. These academic years will continue to affect the achievement of many bright students. Without precise data on the virus which impacts student learning, no one knows whether and when to return to the in-person learning system. Even now education leaders are trying to avoid risks and shutting their schools down for the health of students and staff. Many health risks are associated with in-person learning, they are against the educational necessities of children, and children can learn more efficiently in physical classes as compared to online sessions.

Closures of Schools due to COVID-19 have brought major disturbances to Education across The Whole world:

Emerging signs have shown from some of the world’s richest countries that the pandemic is giving a tough time to their education system and rise to learn losses and increases in unfairness. At the very peak of the pandemic, 45 countries in the Central Asia region and Europe closed their respective schools, which almost affected about 185 million students. This pandemic ruined the education system, many teachers and administrations were unrehearsed for this alteration and they were forced to build some sort of remote education system for the students. 

This was surely a tough time for students as well as teachers and respective administrations but some of them somehow coped with it and started online learning system through email, social media applications, telephones, and in some very rare cases they used the services of post offices. We all must be Thankful to the internet world for making it easy for students.

The learning losses that are caused by the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to have pretty much a long-term negative effect on many bright children’s futures. These losses of learning can make life miserable for the future of the student. 

It could translate into less access to higher education, a lower labor market, and lower earnings in the future.

To mitigate these challenges, there are three recommendations for a country:

1. Implementing learning recovery sessions:  
2. Protecting the budget for education:
3. Be prepared for future immediate shocks:

1. Implementing learning recovery sessions: Most importantly, governments must make sure that students who have fallen behind must receive the support that they need to cover their syllabus. There must be extra tutoring classes for the student who have fallen behind.
2. Protecting the budget for education: throughout the pandemic, some countries face government budget cuts that could risk the gains which are made in recent years. To make sure the recovery, it is really important that the education budget must be protected and the schools that require financing the most are being supported. To help the most affected students, the priority of the governments should be giving much of the funding and resources to support these schools which are delivering remote education. To encourage the students to be persistent in school, incentives such as scholarships must be given to students to cheer them and encourage them and their families. All this should be done within the budget of the education administration.
3. Be prepared for future immediate shocks: It is overbearing that we do not only recover from this pandemic but we should use this experience to be improved and be prepared for crises in the future.Schools must be prepared to switch easily from face-to-face to remote learning as required. This will protect & secure the education and future of the students not only during upcoming pandemics but also throughout other shocks that might be the cause of school closures, such as adverse weather events or natural disasters. It will also generate chances for more individualized tactics for teaching and learning. With keeping this all in mind, it will be compulsory to develop an adaptable curriculum that can be taught to students in person or through online platforms. Moreover, teachers must be better equipped with the knowledge of IT devices so shortly they don’t have any type of inconvenience and they proceed with their lectures without any difficulty. This effort will help the higher education institutes to overcome the effects of COVID-19 and also familiarize themselves with more resilient and flexible methods going forward.

Assessments: The shutting of schools, colleges, and universities not only disturbs the academics session of students around the world but also is the main reason for many exams that have been postponed or canceled.