Higher education in the wake of Covid-19

– The Manila Times

By Fr. Ranhilio Callangan Aquino

I am not posting about stopgap measures, nor am I proposing remedial

measures. I am envisioning post-coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19)
higher education. Covid-19 thus functions in my thoughts as the catalyst for
a rethinking of higher education.

We must transition from narrative education to problem-posing education.

Even outcome-based education was not sufficiently radical. It still meant that,
together with internal and external stakeholders of higher education, we
formulated the desired outcomes — capacities, capabilities, skills, competencies
we wanted students to exhibit after a course of study. But most of the time, we
would still be narrating — no matter that we claimed we were targeting higher
order thinking skills. Problem-posing education involves students
problematizing life-situations. So, problem-posing education does not take a
pandemic as a fated event. The student will ask why it happened, whether it
could have been avoided. He will look for signals (from learned articles and
policy papers) on predictions that a coronavirus would hit the world with
unprecedented ferocity. He will ask about the soundness of government
response. The problems thus raised by the student and addressed by her are her
problems and the concerns of those significant to her. The professor’s role
ceases to be that of a narrator of answers. The professor leads the student to ask
significant questions she might have to answer on the way to a solution to the
problems she has raised. He will point out sources, which will be of varying
degrees of usefulness. He will criticize the methods of problem-solving the
student has used. In a very tangible manner, then, the shift to problem-posing
education will allow the students to craft their own courses of study.

The shift of the locus of instruction. The center of instructional gravity used to
be the classroom and the university premises. In the post-Covid era, this should
only partly be the case, if at all. We often claimed that “the world is the
classroom” but have really seldom meant it, very soon herding our students back
to the classroom. Put in its most succinct form, my proposal is that learning will
take place wherever it can take place. This is not an empty tautology, because it
means being more sensitive to learning opportunities outside the classroom on
which there has so far been inordinate reliance. Mastery of English, for example,
will be far more effective by immersing a student in a community of fluent
English speakers than by classroom exercises that so often go nowhere.
Resourcefulness will also make the student earnestly search for online sources
and distinguish between genuine scholarship and the trash of charlatans. No, I
am not advocating a transformation of all instruction into on the-job training,
especially not in the form it is done now, which is many times totally unhelpful.
But what it does involve is looking around for learning situations that may
include the workplace, boardrooms, offices and facilities. It may also include
exchanges with knowledgeable persons: professors, authors, writers, experts in
industry, whether these be through face-to-face interviews, correspondence,
emails or even chats.
A change in the concept of insfrastructure. Thus far, infrastructure has referred
to buildings, laboratories, centers, etc. We have been forced to realize that
infrastructure that is as useful if not more useful refers to connectivity, access to
the web, enhancing modes of exchange and communication. Obviously, there is
so much that is not within the ken of institutions — such as the availability of
cell sites. But higher education has always been about partnering with the
community, and I am sure that networks will be sensitive to potential clientele
needs. The potential usefulness of artificial intelligence cannot be overstated.
Such devices as Siri and Alexa currently used presage the informative wealth
that can be made available on demand. This should also provide systems
developers and experts in artificial intelligence with the direction in which their
efforts can and should go.

Increased reliance on independent but guided research. This is not new. This
has been the way some of the most prestigious institutions of higher learning
have allowed students to progress at their own, nonetheless demanding, pace.
The student chooses a research theme and draws up a list of readings. The
professor approves the list, and the student works at his pace, reading, taking
notes, cross referencing. The student and the tutor or the professor then
dialogue individually to enable both to monitor progress. There are two
advantages in this, among others: first, the student freely chooses what she
wishes to do research on; second, the demands are higher, because the reading
list should neither be short nor frivolous.

As I propose it, therefore, post-Covid higher education is the shape of higher

education to come, whether we labor under pandemic restrictions or not. But
it calls on students, professors and educational managers alike to redefine
their roles and perhaps to abandon habits of thought.