2/22/25, 3:26 PM EDUCATION: THE FUTURE OF DIGITAL EDUCATION - Newspaper - DAWN.
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E-PAPER | FEBRUARY 22, 2025
EDUCATION: THE FUTURE OF DIGITAL
EDUCATION
Arshad Saeed Husain | Published July 25, 2021
Composite illustration by Saad Arifi
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The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on education
in 2020 cannot be underestimated. By some
estimates, 1.7 billion students were affected, in
over 190 countries, by some form of school
closure. Millions of young people — along with
their teachers and parents — had to adapt to new
ways of learning; in some cases, this happened
overnight. The immediate need to continue
education meant that governments and schools
had to be creative.
The pandemic has changed the way we think about
education: school shutdowns and distanced learning have
become the norm. But as the global education sector
rapidly digitises, we must first take a moment to consider
the needs of teachers, learners and parents as we emerge
into this new era of education.
To better understand the impact of the disruption and
change of the past 14 months, we at Oxford University
Press (OUP) undertook some research, releasing the
findings in a report, Education: The Journey Towards a
Digital Revolution.
Our research draws on insights from our internal experts
across seven countries — the UK, Brazil, South Africa,
Pakistan, India, Spain and Turkey — as well as from
hundreds of teachers globally, and extensive secondary
research. We observed clear trends in each region and
several similarities across all markets, with the main
finding being that digital learning became a feature of
global learning in 2020 like never before.
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In Pakistan, the switch to online learning wasn’t smooth.
However, by February 2021, 36 percent of schools that we
surveyed globally had digital learning platforms in place,
and Pakistan followed a similar trajectory for private
schools.
Hybrid learning is here to
stay. But issues such as the
digital divide, the well-being
of students and skills
development for teachers are
crucial to ensuring fair access
to education for all...
ADDRESSING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE
But not everyone was able to take advantage of digital to
continue their education. While 98 percent of our experts
believed that digital learning will be firmly embedded in
teaching practices in the future,
85 percent of them believed that learners from
disadvantaged backgrounds have fallen behind their more
advantaged peers. This issue was very real in Pakistan, with
economic factors heavily restricting children’s access to
hardware to enable them to learn online.
According to the education statistics 2016-17, 86 percent of
Pakistan’s primary schools are based in rural parts of the
country, with limited access to the internet and mobile
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connectivity, restricting access to any digital learning
solutions. The latest “Inclusive Internet Index”, which
measures the accessibility and affordability of the internet
for a country, also paints a grim picture for Pakistan,
ranking it in the bottom quantile. This accentuates the
problem that Pakistan faces in creating an equitable digital
education system and, with 25 million children out of
school even before the pandemic, we are faced with a
significant challenge.
The Ministry of Federal Education and Professional
Training (MOFEPT) responded to these challenges last
year by initiating tele-school and radio school programmes
during the pandemic. We are not alone in this approach. A
Unicef report indicates that 75 percent of countries have
used educational TV for at-home learning, while 57 percent
have used radio; this indicates a substantial and global
digital divide that will pose a barrier to the digitisation of
education.
Our report echoes these findings, highlighting the
significant ‘digital divide’ that exists globally: where poorer
children are, in effect, unable to access the same quality of
education. In India for example, a large majority of
students have been impacted due to a lack of devices or
connectivity at home — an issue replicated across Pakistan.
In South Africa, data is expensive, and respondents said
only 10 percent of learners had access to a learning device
at home. Beyond the high cost of data, teachers also found
that there were technical glitches, such as connecting to the
internet, or phones or gadgets malfunctioning at the last
moment.
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To enable Pakistan’s learners to access their education
digitally, future government policy must bridge the
economic and structural divides that separate young
people from the quality learning materials they need to
access.
SUPPORT FOR TEACHERS
The rush to implement digital courseware and other
learning materials also necessitated a steep learning curve
for teachers. According to the World Bank, no country had
a universal digital curriculum for teaching and learning
before the pandemic, meaning that teachers needed to up-
skill quickly.
To support teachers in their professional development and
to enhance their skills, we conducted virtual professional
development courses throughout the pandemic, benefitting
more than 68,000 teachers across Pakistan. The Virtual
Teacher Training Modules comprised of pedagogical and
textbook-based learning opportunities, including free
webinars on various teaching methodologies. Along with
this, we also worked closely with teachers to support and
guide them through this digital shift during the pandemic.
However, given the ever-evolving nature of digital
technology, ongoing professional development for teachers
will always be a priority.
There is no doubt that a digital revolution is underway.
Digital education will be embedded in learning and we will
move towards a hybrid model. In our teacher’s panel, 44
percent of the respondents said that the shift towards
digital learning has changed education for the better. In
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addition, 98 percent of OUP’s experts said they believe
digital learning will be firmly embedded in teaching
practices in the future. Teachers also feel more confident in
delivering digital learning. Prior to the pandemic, only 43
percent felt comfortable with it, but in our latest findings
93 percent now feel confident or very confident.
What does the future of learning look like?
Our survey respondents were united in agreeing that, as
one Brazilian educator put it, “blended learning is here to
stay.” Although some expressed doubts about changes in
the short-term, the expectation is that a hybrid model will
ultimately emerge with online and offline methods
supporting each other.
If a year of school shutdowns has taught us anything, it’s
the role and value of the teachers. While there are clear
benefits to online learning, teachers found it harder to
motivate pupils remotely with no time and space for
children to socialise with each other or with their teachers,
and there have been fewer opportunities to catch students
who are falling behind.
We know the shift to digital and blended learning —
despite the catalyst of the pandemic — will not happen
immediately. This gives us time to listen to teachers and
learn from each other, understanding the best way to
incorporate digital into their pedagogy and improve
learning outcomes.
FUTURE GOVERNMENT POLICY
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We are making the case for governments to actively
collaborate and learn from teachers and students and use
their recent experiences to update future education policy.
The curriculum needs to evolve too, so that learners
develop the core skills needed to navigate future
uncertainty and become “digitally fluent”.
Taking the learning from our report, we know that issues
such as the digital divide, learner well-being and skills
development for teachers may not be easy issues to solve,
but they are crucial to enabling fair access to education.
Finally, I strongly believe that, no matter how much the
mode of teaching changes, quality content and learning
outcomes must stay firmly at the heart of learning. OUP
Pakistan has a long and dedicated history of supporting
education in Pakistan — since 1952 — and we will continue
to do so, supporting teachers, learners and parents on the
journey to discover the future of education.
The writer is the Managing Director of Oxford University
Press.
He tweets @asaeedhusain
Published in Dawn, EOS, July 25th, 2021
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