Education in Pakistan has surely come a long way. From having a single university at the time of independence to having more than 150 recognized universities and degree awarding institutes is no doubt a step forward.
The failed public schooling system of Pakistan is no big secret. This has led to an influx of private schools all over the country. Opening a school is being seen as a lucrative business idea by entrepreneurs. Every now and then an incident comes to light, which shows that elite private schools across the country are entities with very little accountability. Parents are no strangers to the fact that these schools have become corporate structures prepared to charge any sum from them, promising to impart quality education to their children. The parents, who naturally want their kids to acquire top-class education, pay their disposable income for this commodity.
Talking about exorbitant fees, is education really even worth the price we pay for? The schools pride themselves on employing ‘best’ teaching faculty whereas one too many times the teacher they hire lacks decent subject expertise or is just not specialized to teach a particular subject. The elite in Pakistan has created fortresses in the form of these private schools where an average Pakistani cannot study or interact with the elite students. And this isolation continues throughout the lives of the elite students who graduate from these schools.
Then there is the problem of small private schools, these schools are popping up at an alarming rate throughout the country and they are a more serious cause of concern.
First and foremost, the rapidly growing number of small private schools seems to be doing more damage than any good. Many bungalows are continuously being rented out by the entrepreneurs for opening a new private school. The area of these bungalows usually ranges from 10 marlas to 1 Kanal. These bungalows generally have five to six classrooms with no playground, no library, no cafeteria, and poorly designed science labs with little to no equipment. The students studying in such schools are not prepared for the practical world.
They are just treated like robots and are forced to cram the board’s prescribed syllabus to pass the final exams. Due to strong competition, every year I see big hoardings of these schools proudly advertising the high marks achieved by their students in the board exams, little to their knowledge that they have done nothing for the true development of their students. The majority of their students fail to score high in the international university entrance exams like SATs which base their questions on analytical reasoning.
Covid however changed everything, we saw the whole world transition to the digital platform. From offices to schools, everyone adopted a work from the home approach. In education, this has given rise to EdTech. “EdTech”, short for education technology, refers to new technological implementations in the classroom. EdTech is the practice of facilitating learning and improving performance by utilizing technological applications. EdTech has been on the rise since the start of the pandemic. Due to an increase in demand, EdTech came to the forefront in 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically impacted today’s learning experience, and it is imperative that we maintain the same quality of learning experience for students which is critical for the development of future generations.
Even before COVID-19, there was already high growth and adoption in education technology, with global EdTech investments reaching US$18.66 billion in 2019 and the overall market for online education projected to reach $350 Billion by 2025. Whether it is language apps, virtual tutoring, video conferencing tools, or online learning software, there has been a significant surge in usage since COVID-19. So, what does this mean for the future of learning and EdTech? EdTech is expected to give tough competition to private and public schools as the world is now transitioning to a digital platform and there have already been successful transitions amongst many universities and schools. For example, Zhejiang University managed to get more than 5,000 courses online just two weeks into the transition using “DingTalk ZJU”. The Imperial College London started offering a course on the science of coronavirus, which is now the most enrolled class launched in 2020 on Coursera.
Many are already touting the benefits; it has changed the way of teaching. It enables teachers to reach out to students more efficiently and effectively through chat groups, video meetings, voting, and also document sharing, especially during this pandemic. Students also find it is easier to communicate via online platforms.
The basic premise is that online education is a business, and it is establishing itself rapidly as it joins the mainstream, one would want to ask about the organizational structure of these institutions, the budgeting, agenda, priorities for investments and development, and how it affects the role that faculty and staff play — just a variety of issues that come together to make online learning a viable, long-term aspect of higher education. I believe traditional offline learning and e-learning will go hand in hand in the future.