The Coronavirus pandemic has caused massive disruption amongst different industries around the world. The education industry suffered immensely with kindergartens, schools and universities being forced to close down and halt education to students of every age group. In our exclusive interview with Jane Mann, Managing Director of Cambridge Partnership for Education, we discuss how Cambridge is working to support governments to create quality public education systems and how educators can improve hybrid learning methods.

Are schools better prepared to deal with crises now that they’ve adapted to Covid-19?

This pandemic has caused the largest global disruption to education in living memory, with more than 90% of the world’s schools closed at some point this year. Governments, teachers and students have responded with creativity and flexibility, learning new skills and experimenting with digital tools at a spectacular pace – and it’s not over yet. Schools will want to harness these experiences to be better prepared to deal with the challenges of the future.

While schools are reopening, they have to be prepared for multimodal learning. The UAE is a good example of this, where schools have to balance the needs of students who have returned to in-person teaching and students who continue to learn from home.

However, we don’t yet know the full impact this pandemic has had on learning. School closures have disproportionately affected the most vulnerable, widening gaps in access to, and quality of, education. The United Nations has raised concerns that 11 million girls may never return to school. For those who do return to the classroom, regardless of background, it’s widely recognised that learning loss has resulted from school closures.

It’s tempting for recovery from this crisis to focus exclusively on addressing this, with many educators prioritising ‘catch up’ solutions. But, though it is essential learning gaps are tackled, this should not come at the expense of seizing opportunities for deeper structural transformation which will help all schools be more ready to handle crises in the future.

How can we support the education industry to make sure learning is efficient for students and educators? 

The more we know about learning during this time, what worked and what didn’t, the better we can support schools to recover. We need to conduct and share research into educational experiences across borders throughout this period of crisis, using data to understand successes as well as gaps that persist.

Over the past few months, in partnership with Brains Global, Cambridge has hosted two virtual conferences for government officials from a wide range of different countries to better understand the impact of the pandemic on their education systems and policy implications for the future. It’s also important we recognise the voices of wider communities, students, teachers and parents. We recently collaborated with EDUCATE Ventures at University College London to conduct a survey to capture the experience of all education stakeholders.

Finally, we should interrogate what ‘efficient’ learning means. There has been much discussion this year about the lack of progress against national curricula, and the impact this might have on assessment, but we cannot forget the importance of education to social and emotional wellbeing. Remote learning has often failed to provide human interaction and the structure of the school day, which forms a vital part of children’s development. Teachers too have had to adapt to changing roles and circumstances, often without formal training, and we must consider how we can support them to make new ways of working sustainable.

What steps will Cambridge take to fast forward education to meet the needs of future generations? 

In January this year, a discussion at the Education World Forum in London focused on the progress the education sector needed to collectively make in just a decade to realise the United Nations 2030 Agenda. This agenda includes the vision of a world with equitable and universal access to quality education at all levels. In the months since, the gap between the current position and this vision has widened. In response, Cambridge is helping lead conversations on what can be done now; facilitating meetings with policymakers, listening closely to people across the education spectrum and conducting research. Every day, we partner with governments and organisations around the world to develop quality, coherent education systems that support national goals for future generations. Moving forward, this will be inherently informed by a strong understanding of the impact of the pandemic, but also by other local contexts and by experience gained transforming education in over 60 countries in the last 12 years.

Do you think a hybrid learning method is sustainable in the long run?

Yes, a hybrid learning method can certainly be sustainable in the long run. However, this can take many forms. We need to make sure that those blended learning arrangements which have grown out of necessity in the midst of school closures are the most effective mechanisms for those teachers, students and wider education systems. If you start with a country’s vision, you can work back to consider what learning solutions will be most effective to achieve those goals, taking inspiration from best practice in-country and internationally.

The most important consideration for a hybrid learning model is that it must not disadvantage learners. Distance learning, for example, may work well for some students, but less well for others. However, it offers some tantalising possibilities – increasing access to the best teaching, enabling students to follow their interests, and making more flexible use of a school’s facilities.

What new roles can EdTech play in the rapidly growing education industry in the next 10 years?

2020 has seen an unprecedented level of adoption and experimentation with EdTech, with some commentators suggesting that the coronavirus crisis has hastened levels of digital adoption by 4 or 5 years. Teachers who had previously been on the fence about technology are likely to have found new ways of working with it, and there will be a greater understanding of the ways in which digital can support teaching and learning in the classroom and at home.

EdTech offers an opportunity to improve the quality and access to learning for all young people, but it also poses the risk of worsening a digital divide that excludes students. The last 6 months have demonstrated what EdTech can do to preserve access to education, but in the next 10 years, I’d like to see EdTech focus on what it can do to improve equity and inclusion.