What Has the Pandemic Revealed about Distance Learning?
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It’s March again—one full year since schools around the world pivoted to distance learning as a preventive measure against the coronavirus. And during that time, educators have been turning to all sorts of technologies—including the Internet, television, and radio—to try to keep young students learning and engaged.
This shift to learning outside the traditional boundaries of school has not always been easy. But it has also revealed that learning is possible in a multitude of contexts, and that it can even have some unforeseen, positive effects.
In this podcast, Amanda Devercelli, the global lead for Early Childhood Development at the World Bank, and Rachel Christina, the director of International Basic Education at EDC, examine what teachers and education policymakers can learn from the past year. They also explain why ministries of education would be wise to build distance learning, including interactive audio instruction, into their education planning for the long-term.
On the long-term impact of the pandemic on early education:
Devercelli: We know that countries are going to face budget crunches coming out of this pandemic. And so I think one of the worries I have is that we have seen so much progress in increasing access to early childhood education in the last decade or two around the world, and I think there is a risk of that progress stagnating if countries don’t continue to invest in early childhood education or if they decrease investments.
On unexpected benefits of distance learning:
Christina: We’ve been able to engage young people who are out of school to mentor and monitor the users of distance education programs that we’ve been implementing—so engaging slightly older youth to support younger learners, to monitor distribution of resources, to help with feedback troubleshooting, to assist with learner assessment, and to provide physical and moral support for distance education initiatives. And that’s been a really good way to help keep those youth who are also out of school engaged in their communities, develop some leadership skills, and stay connected with learning on their own.
On the utility of interactive audio instruction:
Devercelli: There are a number of high-quality evaluations that show that interactive audio instruction can be highly effective and deliver good quality programming and be very cost effective when delivered at scale. And we’ve known that for a long time. But I think that sometimes ministries of education have been hesitant to invest in interactive audio instruction and radio programming because it does have a hefty upfront cost. But what I think the pandemic has shown is that it would have been great to have made that upfront cost and be ready to roll it out.
On the need to build distance learning methodologies into education in the 21st century:
Christina: Well, I think what we’ve seen with COVID is that education systems globally were not prepared to deal with major disruptions to learning. And they had no back-up system for delivering education at scale on short notice. . . . Having a mechanism that supports low-capacity teachers, that delivers a high-quality curriculum, that is proven to be effective will be really helpful to systems as they re-engage. But also then having that ready and able to be accessed in the case of future shocks will be of great benefit to them. And unfortunately, I think we’re not just talking about health issues. We are talking about climate crises. We’re talking about natural disasters. We’re talking about a range of conflict and crisis contexts in which many of the most challenged children are living. And having those systems buttressed with this kind of support to which educators could pivot, into which families could pivot, in case of a crisis will be really important.