How the pandemic has changed the education system

The past 12 months show clear­ly what is pos­si­ble when the edu­ca­tion sys­tem and wider com­mu­ni­ty pull togeth­er with shared pur­pose. Our nation­wide response to the essen­tial clo­sure of edu­ca­tion set­tings and insti­tu­tions dur­ing the ini­tial out­break of the coro­n­avirus in the UK saw par­ents, child­care work­ers, teach­ers, lec­tur­ers, school lead­ers, indus­try, celebri­ties, civ­il ser­vants and gov­ern­ment unite behind the aim of help­ing edu­cate our chil­dren dur­ing a time of cri­sis. 

The nation’s col­lec­tive and awe-inspir­ing effort has helped lim­it the longer-term impact of the pan­dem­ic on many chil­dren. With­out these efforts, the dam­age and lost-learn­ing to this COVID gen­er­a­tion could have been even greater. The chal­lenge is, of course, still sig­nif­i­cant and I wel­come the government’s appoint­ment of catch-up tsar Sir Kevan Collins, who will be lead­ing a co-ordi­nat­ed charge to help sup­port chil­dren and learn­ers over the com­ing peri­od.

The government’s 2019 edtech strat­e­gy, mas­ter­mind­ed by the then edu­ca­tion sec­re­tary Dami­an Hinds, was under­pinned by an under­stand­ing and com­mit­ment of the ben­e­fits edtech, when deliv­ered effec­tive­ly, brings to reduc­ing teacher work­load bur­dens, per­son­alised learn­ing approach­es, assess­ment, sys­tem lead­er­ship and com­mu­ni­ca­tion. 

Promis­ing ear­ly results were achieved by a num­ber of the strategy’s key ini­tia­tives, includ­ing the Char­tered Col­lege of Teaching’s online edtech sup­port, the Lend­ED EdTech lend­ing por­tal and the LearnED teacher con­tin­u­ing pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment (CPD) road­shows before the arrival of COVID-19 rewrote the nor­mal oper­at­ing pro­ce­dure for the UK’s edu­ca­tion sec­tor.

The pan­dem­ic also exposed areas where more invest­ment is need­ed. Lock­down meant access to school devices dur­ing the day and after hours to home­work clubs was impos­si­ble for those stu­dents most in need and the nation’s dig­i­tal divide has been laid out stark­ly, in terms of access to con­nec­tiv­i­ty, kit and con­tent.

I’m proud that British Edu­ca­tion­al Sup­pli­ers Asso­ci­a­tion mem­bers stepped up to pro­vide an answer to the con­tent chal­lenge, pro­vid­ing £36 mil­lion in free edu­ca­tion­al resources and sup­port to schools and fam­i­lies dur­ing the ini­tial three months of lock­down alone. 

The edtech sec­tor became an unof­fi­cial emer­gency ser­vice, sup­port­ing school-home com­mu­ni­ca­tions and step­ping in to pro­vide addi­tion­al train­ing and CPD to teach­ers to help them nav­i­gate and use unfa­mil­iar dig­i­tal tools effec­tive­ly to aid online teach­ing and learn­ing.

The Depart­ment for Edu­ca­tion has act­ed too with a series of ini­tia­tives such as the COVID-pre­mi­um, the Nation­al Tutor­ing Pro­gramme (although there is a missed oppor­tu­ni­ty here giv­en the exclu­sion of dig­i­tal cur­ricu­lum resources from the pro­gramme cur­rent­ly) and oth­er devices and data schemes to sup­port schools and learn­ers. 

These efforts are to be wel­comed, but what must fol­low is a revised and updat­ed edtech strat­e­gy and approach to address the chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties that experts from the teach­ing com­mu­ni­ty, indus­try and par­lia­ment have iden­ti­fied, as evi­denced in the All-Par­ty Par­lia­men­tary Group for Edtech’s Lessons from Lock­down report pub­lished in March.

It will be impor­tant that any future gov­ern­ment inter­ven­tions recog­nise and cel­e­brate, rather than sti­fle, the exper­tise and auton­o­my of school lead­ers and mul­ti-acad­e­my trusts in sup­port­ing their school com­mu­ni­ties, along­side the inno­va­tion and cre­ativ­i­ty of the UK’s vibrant edtech sec­tor. 

As lock­down has proved, there is no one size fits all for edu­ca­tion. Each young per­son deserves to receive the indi­vid­ual pack­age of sup­port they need to help reim­merse them­selves in their edu­ca­tion envi­ron­ments and enjoy the very best of the inspi­ra­tional learn­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties that are avail­able thanks to our tal­ent­ed teach­ers and school lead­ers.

The edtech indus­try looks for­ward to work­ing togeth­er with pol­i­cy­mak­ers, prac­ti­tion­ers, par­ents and pupils to help devel­op and deliv­er an edtech offer that will be fit for the post-pan­dem­ic needs of pupils and young peo­ple.