The challenges of education at all levels

we have to prepare

Foto by Arnold Hagens

Published in El Pais, 15 December 2020.

In many countries, school education has been halted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Organizations that have adapted to online education are gaining ground and the opportunity to learn from this experience and improve.

Before COVID-19, universities that wanted to do distance education had few followers because this type of learning was not accepted as “high quality”. Today, school and college education are done 100% online and there are new challenges for which we must prepare.

Learning chess is a good example to illustrate what I mean. Before, chess was a discipline for few, generally nerds. Chess clubs also suffered from COVID-19 but many of these clubs were prepared to deal with it quickly in a new way: online games. Lichess.org is an application to play with different players online from all over the world or also among the players of a club. Many have been able to continue their tournaments on this platform and from the comfort of their home without having to travel. Additionally, games, scores, and positions are saved for each player’s history.

Children from the Netherlands who needed to continue their chess classes were able to do so with a teacher in Bolivia, paying their monthly payments by bank transfers. Also, many school teachers in Bolivia continued education to students who privately wanted to continue their education with online payments. And this is the new challenge for education. There are so many education options today that can award diplomas and high-end knowledge and in different languages ​​that borders are no longer a constraint. Since COVID-19, options have increased and organizations that don’t adapt will soon lose ground. Many Bolivian children who wanted to continue their education did so with online schools from abroad and many free access. What if foreign schools could issue diplomas accepted in Bolivia? At the end of the day, it is the skills and knowledge that make us finish college and university, not just the validity of diplomas.

These are the new challenges that are added to the others of quality, updating the programs, etc. which we must prepare for.

About Arnold Hagens 296 Articles
Arnold Hagens is Economist with strong interest in technology, health and coaching

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