Setting aside the loss of life resulting from the advent of COVID-19, the next biggest tragedy has been the erosion of our education system, the requisites of social distancing resulting from the nature of the pandemic wreaking havoc with our accustomed method of education delivery in circumstances where there exists no feasible option that can match what, in the short to medium term at least, has been lost.
There can be no question that our education system is now facing a level of crisis the likes of which is unprecedented in our history. Such remedial measures as have been proffered up until now are unlikely to be very effective given the weaknesses of our overall infrastructure in the first place. Those options as might be available in developed countries are simply not accessible to us in the extent necessary to salvage our education system.
To be sure there had always been challenges in our education system, challenges associated with poverty, our failure to incrementally invest in its development and in what can only be described as poor political choices to lead the Ministry. Talk for years about the importance of adding a stronger technology dimension to a system that has always been hinged, overwhelmingly, to what is commonly known as the ‘chalk and talk’ method has borne no real fruit. That is because much of the talk has been hot air, spewed by clueless politicians.
We have failed, over the years, to properly adjust the institutional training of teachers to meet some of the contemporary demands of education delivery reflected in the realities of the technology age. Here, one of the biggest disappointments has to be with our failure to pursue the kinds of curriculum adjustments necessary to accommodate technology. Simply put, we have allowed ourselves to be left behind.
That is not all. The truth is that there exists no persuasive evidence that the Ministry of Education, in its own leadership training, has ever sought to create a cadre of functionaries that could help lead us into the light of the education technology age. These would have had to be functionaries possessed of an appreciation of the role that technology plays in contemporary education delivery.
To a large extent the horses have already bolted. The Ministry of Education, we are told, has opted to press its Learning Channel (TV) into service as well as to use radio in order to reach children in their homes, which measures are, in themselves, an acknowledgement of the limitations of such virtual learning tools as it has at its disposal. In so doing it must face the reality that home-school learning through television and radio have their considerable limitations in what is likely to be, in many instances, the absence of adult supervision.
Going forward, a few things are necessary. First, the Ministry of Education itself must become far more seized of the role that technology has to play in education delivery. It can only do so if it recruits competent professionals and equally importantly, leave them to do their jobs. In large measure, ham-fisted interventions by ill-informed politicians in pursuits that are technical in nature, have been the bane of this country’s existence. That may be an expression of wishful thinking but we can do no more than hope. Secondly, our bureaucrats in the education system need to become far more exposed to the currents of the global education system in order to better position them to make enlightened decisions. Virtual education is one of those areas in which (perhaps most) of our senior decision-makers in the education system appear to have little if any knowledge.
Thirdly, the education sector must establish a more intimate relationship with the telecommunications sector to create the infrastructural buildout that can facilitate the growth of an effective virtual education system; finally, efforts to attract resources for the education sector must focus to a far greater extent than has been the case up until now creating greater access to information technology tools and training for children across the country.
We must make no mistake about it. The advent of COVID-19 and our historic indifference to the continual enhancement of our education has now left us with a proverbial mountain to climb.
