First Entry
Education in the pandemic era
Covid-19
has proved us once again how important is internet for quality education, since
the start of the worldwide pandemic every place that gathered lots of people
were forced to close, including universities and schools, these places for
learning had to change their methods of education and the most obvious answer for
this problem was virtual classes, naturally most people have an internet
connection at home and several devices that can connect to internet.
But, what happens
with the less fortunate that don’t have internet connection at home nor the
devices needed for it?
According
to the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (2020) “Two
thirds of the world’s school-age children – or 1.3 billion children aged 3 to
17 years old – do not have internet connection in their homes”. It’s been a year
since the virtual classes began and the fact that so many children and
teenagers are losing the opportunity to educate themselves for this long period
of time and that is not even their fault is concerning, not having internet
connection is costing them their future. This problem is also widening the gap
between the rich and the poor, increasing inequality and closing the doors for lower-income
families to get out of poverty.
To prevent and
mitigate the learning crisis that is upon us, the United Nations (2020) recommends
governments and stakeholders to pursue the following policies:
·
Suppress
transmission of the virus and plan thoroughly for school re-openings.
·
Protect
education financing and coordinate for impact.
·
Build
resilient education systems for equitable and sustainable development.
·
Reimagine
education and accelerate change in teaching and learning.
Only time will tell if these policies will help less fortunate students catch up with their peers and encourage them to keep studying and also improve education in general.
My experience with education’s transition from physical to virtual.
Now I want to talk about my experience with the sudden changes (at the time) of going everyday to the university to watching every class through my computer.
To start, since I lived really far away from the campus (as you can see in the following map), the biggest change in my routine is that since I didn’t have to attend classes physically anymore, I had a lot more free time, I’ll describe a little bit about my commute from my house to the university to put a little bit of context.
I had to take a bus to the nearest metro station, which was “La Estrella”, there aren’t many busses so I would have to wait 15 to 20 minutes for one to come and then spend 20 to 30 minutes on the way to the station, after that, I boarded the metro and 10 minutes later I was in “La aguacatala” which was the nearest station from the Campus, and then took a 5 minute walk to arrive to the university. So I would spend more or less 2 hours every day between going to the campus and coming back to my home.
Naturally,
the first classes and days were pretty fun, since I didn’t have to be present
physically I could wake up 30 – 60 minutes before the class started compared to
when I had to go that I had to wake up 2:30 hours before the class, to get
ready and be there in time. I appreciated every minute of sleep that I had. And
the classes weren’t that bad also, since I slept more, I was more attentive to
my classes and motivated, I took notes, asked when I had doubts, I felt like it
was better this way since I could do so many more things than before or so I thought
in the beginning.
I started
to lose focus and motivation in the middle of the next semester (my 5th
at the time), I was bored of sitting in front of the computer screen all day
every day, I had a hard time paying attention and retaining the topics that I saw
in every class, and the cherry on top is that I felt that the academic
intensity went up a lot, so I had more workshops, more homework and every class
started to feel like an eternity, so at the end it was really overwhelming. I started
to notice the bad side about seeing every class virtually, a huge part of it is
that I wasn’t able to see my friends and chat with them as we did when we were
physically present in the campus, another thing is that since I was always
inside my house I didn’t have the fresh air and the different environment that
the university gave me, being present in the beautiful campus is also a good part of the
motivation in my classes, even though I live really far away from it.
Right now I’m
doing great with my classes, I feel a lot more motivated than before because
there is the possibility to come back to the campus to see classes, recently I even
had the opportunity to attend the career assembly and talk to my friends whom I
hadn’t seen since the virtual classes began, hopefully next semester I’ll have
my first presential class and start my routine again.
And that’s my experience with the sudden change in my routine and with virtual classes.
How was your
experience with virtual classes?
Do you feel
more excited/motivated now that there is the possibility to go back to
presential classes?.
What policies should governments take to ensure equal education for all students? (especially for those who do not have internet connection)
Let me know
in the comments!
And thank
you for reading.
References.
United
Nations International Children’s Emergency fund (2020). UNICEF. Two thirds of
the world’s school-age children have no internet access at home, new UNICEF-ITU
report says. Retrieved from: https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/two-thirds-worlds-school-age-children-have-no-internet-access-home-new-unicef-itu
United
Nations (2020). Policy Brie: EDUCATION during COVID-19 and beyond. Retrieved
from: https://www.un.org/development/desa/dspd/wp-content/uploads/sites/22/2020/08/sg_policy_brief_covid-19_and_education_august_2020.pdf
Love it!
ResponderEliminar