The global COVID-19 pandemic has presented massive challenges to educators who are trying to ensure continuity in learning for children under lockdown and strict new hygiene measures to keep the virus at bay. 

Dubai-based GEMS Education, which operates 66 schools catering to 119,000 students across the region, delivered 28 million remote lessons in the summer term of 2020, and says while remote learning was thrust upon the sector by the pandemic, it was a challenge the company was well prepared for.

Advances in technology may make the differences between remote and in-person learning ‘no longer an issue’, the group’s Chief Disruption Officer told Zawya.    

Krishnan Gopi said GEMS had approached the remote learning requirement from a position of strength, as the company had invested $500 million in technology in the decade leading up to the pandemic.

“While COVID-19 has thrust remote learning upon us, the reality is that the education sector had already begun to evolve, with an increasing number of schools and institutions offering some form of online learning and teaching,” he said. 

“Seen from this perspective, it is clear that the pandemic has accelerated us towards the future of education - a future that we at GEMS Education have long anticipated and prepared for.”

Despite GEMS’ investment, Gopi says remote learning cannot not completely replace brick-and-mortar schools.

However, while he stopped short of saying GEMS would launch a fully online school, he said technological advances may make the differences between the two models ‘no longer an issue’.

“While online learning is becoming increasingly prevalent – and we anticipate this trend to continue – traditional brick-and-mortar schools cannot be completely replaced by online learning, as they still present a number of benefits that an exclusively online model will struggle to provide,” he said. 

“A traditional face-to-face classroom environment, for example, allows for enhanced interactions between teachers and students, which can result in creating additional learning opportunities beyond the course content.”

Remote learning also presents challenges for working parents who may not be available to support their children’s learning during school hours, he said, adding: “However, the pace of technological advances and capabilities means it may only be a matter of time before these differences between the two models are no longer an issue.”

GEMS is now working towards offering blending learning, a combination of remote and in-person learning, in each of its schools, Gopi said, using its own in-house developed learning management system (LMS), Phoenix Classroom, which is already being used by 97,000 pupils and their parents for teacher-led synchronous lessons, which require students and teacher to be online at the same time, and asynchronous lessons, which students can access at any time.

“Looking ahead to the future, it is conceivable that the number of subjects and classes offered in schools may be adjusted as a result of blended learning or online school provisions gaining increasing prominence.

“Classroom time may be more productively utilised for in-person activities, face-to-face discussions, etc. We also anticipate the concepts of blended learning and online schools to become a permanent part of the education landscape and their presence to continue to grow.”

Exponential technologies, which include artificial intelligence, augmented and virtual reality and robotics, are key, said Gopi, adding that education is evolving faster today than any other period in history.

(Reporting by Imogen Lillywhite; editing by Seban Scaria)

(imogen.lillywhite@refinitiv.com)

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