A panel discussion was conducted on 18th August 2020 by Global Research Forum on Diaspora and Transnationalism & The Center for Research on North America (CISAN), UNAM on the topic “Student Migration during and post COVID 19: Latin America and Asia”. As an eminent panellist, Prof. María Amelia Viteri from Universidad San Francisco de Quito (USFQ) and University of Maryland, College Park spoke on how the pandemic is instrumental in widening the education gaps prevalent in the international society and how the marginalised communities across the world are impacted by it the most. She explained how COVID-19 has led to an abrupt halt in social, cultural and economic mobility.
“According to the economic policy institute, as many as 35% of students in low income communities don’t have internet access in the US and this number is three to four times higher in countries like Ecuador”: Prof Viteri.
This is resulting in problems of basic accessibility to online courses as well as challenges in keeping up with the latest technologies without which education today cannot be acquired. She also underlines the various losses that experiential learning is enduring due to the COVID-19 crisis and the innumerable losses that universities, families and students have had to face amidst this pandemic.
Rethinking International Education
In terms of policy options, Professor Viteri says “We must rethink the way we have traditionally understood international education till now”.
Mechanisms of virtual education need to be redefined as well as profound thought needs to be explored on how to adapt curriculums via online learning platforms. Hence, she calls for an urgent need to strengthen virtual communities of learning, supporting online research and improving online certification courses if we want to smoothen the roadways to education in the post COVID-19 world. However, Prof Viteri does recognise that all these things require additional funds, something that many colleges and governments are not in the capacity to shell out. She says- “We are still learning to adapt new technologies to create excellent quality education through virtual learning and the limited resources available”. Hence, it is a constant struggle to come up with the best possible mechanisms to boost education but we must strive to achieve it every single day.
COVID-19 will have lasting effects on how we craft curriculums
Professor Viteribelieves that flexibility in light of the global situation is what will help international education get back on track. She also emphasizes on how the fee structure of universities needs to be modified according to the current situation as considerable claims have been made by parents and students for the same issues since students haven’t been using the campus facilities. Hence, she says that this could lead to a significant change when it comes to the existing high costs of education especially private education.
Prof Viteri concludes her talk by saying that “COVID-19 will have lasting effects on how we craft curriculums and campuses may never look the same. COVID-19 has in fact provided the world with an opportunity to revisit what was working and what wasn’t in general education and hence has supplied the global community with a chance to make necessary changes in the education sector”. The world has indeed changed and with that pedagogies and subjects involved in learning have also changed. Hence we must look at a new holistic approach to improve the mechanisms of global education and incorporate the changing dynamics of today for education to flourish across borders in the postCOVID-19 world.
Writer’s Details Ujjwala Lakhanpal is a final year student of International Relations and Economics at Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University, Gandhinagar. Her areas of interest include Conflict Studies, Asian Geopolitics, International Migrations and the Middle East. Ujjwala is also fond of History, Culture and Religion and you will often find her constructing travel plans to explore the same. Twitter Id- Ujjwala Lakhanpal @UjjwalaLp