IEThinc session to discuss way forward for education amid pandemic

As governments, schools and universities draw up plans for reopening, what will be different about the institutes to which students eventually return? How lasting will some of the changes necessitated by the pandemic be? Is this the disruption education needed and will it transform education in India for the better?

These are some of the questions that an expert panel will unpack on Friday during IE Thinc, a platform where experts confront some of the most pressing issues of our times.

The panellists for the session, titled Covid, Education & The Big Change, include Dr Ameeta Mulla Wattal, principal of Delhi’s Springdales School, Pusa Road; Dr Sunder Ramaswamy, a professional economist, educator and academic administrator and currently Vice-Chancellor of Krea University in Andhra Pradesh; Dr V Ramgopal Rao, Director of IIT-Delhi; and Mr Sourabh Swami, a 2015 batch IAS officer of the Rajasthan cadre and now Director, Secondary Education with the Rajasthan government.

The session will be moderated by Uma Vishnu, Senior Editor, The Indian Express.

Across the country, while schools and colleges are starting to reopen in phases, a new surge of Covid infections has added another layer of complexity.

Will hybrid learning and bio-bubbles be the way forward? Which again brings up the question of accessibility for those on the other side of the digital divide.

According the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), 2020, only about one-third of the surveyed children had access to online learning, and only 11 per cent had access to live online classes.

The panelists will also discuss if schools and universities will emerge from the pandemic as more egalitarian and democratic spaces, having to rethink the very idea of these institutes as residing in buildings.

They will discuss what changes for students in scope and opportunity, and what changes for teachers in teaching methodology.