How Online Schooling Will Change Education in The Future?

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Have you ever wondered what school education will look like in the upcoming years?

Well!

It will certainly be quite different. And it is also right to believe that the future of education will be more digitally driven than it is today.

The greatest development in recent times is the incorporation of technology into mainstream teaching and learning. Virtual education was always an option for many students across the world. But now after the pandemic, it has effortlessly replaced traditional educational designs. As a result, online schooling is now a full-fledged educational choice in India.

As parents/stakeholders, most of us have seen the traditional education system and its static approaches for many decades. But the future of education now depends on a promising and evolving trend called online learning!

Get ready to imagine the face of the future schooling design with us!

Read on for more astonishing and factual information about virtual learning and its impact on our Indian educational designs!

Let’s start with some pivotal advantages of digitalization in education.

Benefits of Online Schooling?

Our policymakers acknowledge the changing paradigm and the online future of education. The recent education policy (National Policy of Education, 2020) highlights some advantages of online education to deliver high-quality education to the masses. In fact, it is right to believe that this new approach to teaching and learning is a perfect medium to cascade government initiatives in every nook and corner of the nation.

Here’s a list of some noteworthy advantages of virtual learning:

Cost-effective
No risk of missing classes
Allows study time as per personal preference
Resolves issues like poor teacher quality
Better educational learning without the need to travel or relocate
A chance to hone digital skills for this future
Improves one’s researching skills
24/7/365 learning
Great opportunities to broaden one’s horizon (through collaborative activities and rich virtual resources)
Suits students with unique learning needs and differently-abled ones as well
No school violence or bullying incidents

The Future of Education depends on high-quality educational experiences. And online schooling has all the resolutions to the barriers that obstruct our path in this endeavor.

Online Learning Will Change Education in The Future in the Following Ways:

1. Maintaining Continuity

Absenteeism from school is a big problem in India. As per a study, almost 4.73-17.84% of students in rural India were absent from school every day. We can imagine the impact of this absenteeism, as the same report shows that around 17.39% of these students failed due to frequent absenteeism. In fact, this is only one side of the bigger story. But the problem of absenteeism has many dimensions for students and even for the stakeholders.

Online future safeguards our students from problems like these. It creates a study pattern that is the most suitable for them. And also allows learning 24/7/365. The concept of asynchronous learning or learning on the go is beneficial for all types of students. This choice will break the distinction between the walled boundaries of a regular school and the study time of a student.

Percentage of students missed school everyday

2. The Approach

The face of new-age learning through the power of technology has the ability to craft an educational experience as per the social and community requirements. Learning organizations across the world have revealed that the future of education will be full of personalized learning. In the upcoming years, students will learn through creative and innovative pedagogies. In addition, they will also be able to enjoy the online components built on rapid advancements such as artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, augmented reality and virtual reality, etc.

online schooling advancement in article intelligence, IOT, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality

Clearly, the schooling design will be altered as per the patterns of online schooling. And the components of virtual learning will be incorporated across all teaching and learning processes. The pedagogies, feedback mechanism, monitoring system, resource segregation, etc. will be on the lines of the mastery-learning model followed in virtual platforms. This will create an all-new approach to student-centric personalized education. And our schooling platforms will be empowered to deliver the best-in-class learning experience.

3. Reduced Costs

The future of education in India will also see a remarkable change in terms of the cost factor. Because online education is already bringing down the cost of schooling in India.

Do you know that every year there is a 10-12% hike in education costs in our country?

Well, this is not all, Indian parents in tier 1 cities spend a mammoth amount (between Rs. 25,000 and Rs 75,000) for their child’s enrollment/admission in a regular school. We all know that the expenses continue even after the admission process. And numerous other expenses simply follow year after year.

The good news is that online schools has offered respite to Indian parents. As the popularity of this medium grows, parents will be able to save the cost of everyday travel, hidden school expenses, and even physical books to a great extent.

4. Skill-Based Education

Online future is all about having professionals with the right level of job readiness. The recent trends reveal the importance of skill-building rather than owning fancy degrees. In the words of Bhushan Patwardhan, (educationist and research scientist) a high-quality online curriculum will uplift the education sector in the future. In this way, it will also provide much-needed support to the country’s gross enrollment ratio targets (35% by the year 2025), making better quality education accessible for all.

It is evident that changes in the traditional education system cannot keep up pace with the dynamic rate of technology. Hence, our Indian academicians are acknowledging the need for online learning to improve the quality of learning and job readiness in Indian students from a global perspective.

The government’s expenditure in the education sector has already reached 12% by the year 2023. And the way forward clearly indicates the dominance of technology in education across all levels from school to university and training as well.

5. Preparing for an Interactive Learning Environment

With innovative learning methods, the use of AI automation, virtual cloud, online homework assignments, etc. teaching and learning will be mostly outside the classroom. The future will hold numerous possibilities through virtual education. And the students will have greater control over their learning.

The interactive learning environment or an immersive learning space will be a game-changer in the upcoming years. It will facilitate socio-emotional learning and seamlessly replace real-world settings. The expanding scope of technology in education will make way for innovative ways of sharing information. Today, the world is all set to witness the next level of educational development with immersive space like the ‘metaverse’ (digital avatars). And the growing trend of online schooling will prepare our education system to thrive with these emerging changes.

6. Holistic Learning

New-age learning and schooling designs have started focusing on creating a holistic system through a blend of different education models. Educational learning powered by digitalization is already shaping the process of knowledge construction. The future of school education will be a product of the online revolution, wherein the components of varied educational environments will be amalgamated to create a holistic system of teaching and learning. Online education is a torchbearer to understand the most suitable model to build 21^st-century competencies. In this way, it is a fool-proof solution to craft individualized learning paths within the mainstream education system.

Final Thoughts:

Gone are the days when brick-and-mortar classrooms were the only option to learn. Digital learning has already opened the doors for high-quality global education in India. And this trend is likely to dominate the educational landscape in the years to come. Indian policymakers are crafting visionary policies to leverage technology across all levels of formal education. Some of these include integrating online education, improving infrastructure, and extending e-learning platforms under the National Education Policy 2020 (Chapter 24, NPE 2020).

The pandemic has taught us some eye-opening lessons about the vulnerability of our traditional systems. Hence, it is right to believe that online schooling will certainly change the future of education through its new and visionary designs.

Thanks for Reading!

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Frequently Asked Questions:

What are some benefits of online education?
Some benefits of virtual learning are flexibility, self-paced study options, lesser costs, no risk of bullying, and better quality education.

How will the online future help our Indian students?
India is a nation that battles with several changes like school drop outs, accessibility of good quality education, and lack of facilities for the differently-abed students. The future with online learning will have solutions for all such challenges, thereby making quality education possible for every Indian student.

How is online schooling cheaper than attending a regular school/class?
Online education does not require everyday travel, and also brings down the cost of school supplies and miscellaneous charges. All this affects the overall cost of education. And makes it more cost-effective for all types of students.

Will the future of education be completely online?
It is not right to say that virtual schooling will completely outshine the traditional schooling design. In fact, the former will continue to dominate the educational landscape. But the latter will also continue.

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