During the pandemic, many schools accross the world had to close down. Learners lost contact with their schools, their teachers and their classmates. In many developed countries online learning became the saviour of thousands of learners. Unfortunately all the learners could not benefit from online learning because of lack and inaccessibility of digital resources.
Is the inaccessibility of digital teaching and learning environment the only barrier of a digital transformation? Could the 'resilience to change' not be the major obstacle in bringing a digital teaching culture at school.
Many educators have been using the same teaching technique throughout their career regardless of the type of learners. Since 1977, the Mauritian landscape, architecture, infrastructure and modes of transport have all revolutionised, unfortunately the Mauritian classroom setting has not changed by even an iota. Our mode of teaching is dominantly expository and exams oriented. During Covid-19 pandemic, schools have remained closed for significant period of time and new modes of teaching and learning emerged: remote learning and online teaching and learning. Many educators have tried to teach via WhatsApp Messaging Application, Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Classrooms. If a few educators seized this occasion to shift from the traditional expository teaching strategy; many have shown their resilience to change by pinpointing inadequate digital resources and training through their syndicates.
Covid 19 pandemic has revealed the vulnerability of our traditional education system. There is an urgent need of a blended mode of teaching which is technology driven to ensure a continuity in education. There is no doubt that the government is working towards a digital transformation plan, however it might take time to change a whole education system. Should we, educators wait for the change to happen? Could we not bring small individual changes at our level?
It is high time that we change our mindsets and instead of being just educators, we become selfless educators. Our children (learners) have remained out of school for too long- we not only have to catch up for learning losses but we also need to ensure that we engage them in learning and give them psychological and emotional support. The contact teaching time being drastically reduced, should be optimised to create a safe and engaging learning environment by catering for students’ emotional intelligence.
N Dhunput -Educator
References:
1.Beyond Disruption: Technology Enabled Learning Futures- UNESCO's Online Conference
2. Major Achievements Year 2020- Ministry of Education, Human Resource & Tertiary Education (Mauritius)
