One Thing to Eliminate Post-COVID-19? Schools.

INTRODUCTION

ONE THING TO ELIMINATE POST-COVID-19? SCHOOLS.

BY HER EXCELLENCY SHEIKHA HIND BINT HAMAD AL-THANI

COVID-19 has done the impossible: it’s changed the way we teach and learn, practically overnight. Throughout April 2020, more than 1.5 billion learners around the world were no longer able to sit in a classroom. Education systems have responded to this unprecedented challenge with speed, adaptability, and imagination. Learning hasn’t ground to a halt. But it has changed utterly.

We can’t go back. How do we move forward?

Prior to COVID-19, ‘schools’ were simply buildings that grouped people together according to certain criteria. Post COVID-19, merely digitizing the existing curriculum isn’t enough. We need to eliminate schools. Not the buildings. But the mental framework that makes us picture the process of getting a group of people, tightly packed, all moving in the same direction at the same time. That has to end.

Automation, artificial intelligence, rising nationalism, rapidly changing employer needs, and a growing global middle class demanding quality education for their children were already poised to reshape how higher education would be delivered.

With its dramatic disruption of the global economy—including institutions of higher education—the corona crisis is accelerating 10 years of change into 10 weeks. For education, this creates an opportunity that we cannot afford to waste.

Now is the time to be asking why children spend a lifetime unlearning what they learned at school; why we say we want selfmotivated learners and then don’t let them choose; why we talk about nurturing global citizens but fail to teach young people to love and care for their planet; why we design ‘schools’ for students who we think of like fish, all similarly-shaped and moving together, when we know everyone learns differently.

The ‘new normal’ will be shaped by the choices made in the next few years by governments, higher education leaders, academics, and a generation of students and parents. We have to get it right, because the stakes are total. Our ability to recover and progress in the decades after this crisis depends entirely on our ability to make higher education more personalized, more flexible, and more holistic.

Higher education globally should set the goal, by 2025, of eliminating the ‘school’ mentality. What exactly do we replace it with? We need to foster an education ecosystem with room for many models—of teaching and learning as well as business—from startups and existing players, and find out what works. And I pledge that my organization will be a leader in this effort.

The place we can start is the element of higher education facing the biggest challenge right now: international students.

International students are expected to exceed 8 million by 2025 and are an important part of many universities’ business models. After COVID-19, up to half of those students say they are less likely to travel to the U.S., UK, or Australia to study. With universities switching to online platforms for continuation, we now ask ourselves why borders should ever exist again in education. Why should a student in India or China be prevented from attending a top-rank university in another country purely because of physical distance?

Governments should ensure stability for higher education institutions in the near term, prioritizing public funding for education over other sectors, but making this financial support conditional on tangible reforms being implemented, to ensure innovation is rewarded. Why should we not use this moment to safeguard not just our present but our future, and to challenge education to disrupt itself?

Private sector investors should also step up and realize that investments in education can profit both society and those taking risks. We reward mass-customized content from Netflix. Why should we not work together to reward and encourage customized education from pre-K to post-grad level?

Education must accept that the best thing we can do for humanity is to develop individuals. Individuals whose success in life is dependent on being outliers, not conformists.

The radical reshaping of education can no longer be a distant goal. It needs to commence immediately, because without education, we cannot hope to revitalize economies or strengthen communities ravaged by this pandemic. That means securing a global commitment to providing the investment that enables education to be what it can be, and what—now more than ever—we need it to be.

It can be done, and it can be done quickly. If COVID-19 has taught us anything, it is how rapidly we can act when faced with necessity. And transforming education is a necessity.

When this pandemic is over and we all go back to our offices, our children go back to their schools and universities, let us all ensure the learning experience we build is one that is informed by the months we’ve spent remotely. Let it be one that embodies that values we’ve strived to protect during this time—the values of making learning exciting, nourishing, and at our own pace. And let us begin now.

About the author: Her Excellency Sheikha Hind bint Hamad Al-Thani is Vice Chairperson and CEO of Qatar Foundation.