Hybrid Schooling : The emerging reality of school education

 

A year has elapsed since the COVID-19 pandemic erupted, wreaking havoc and bringing with it unprecedented disruptions. The education industry was significantly impacted due to closures of institutes, leading to an increase in the school drop-out rate from 4% to 5.5% in the last year, with over 6 million students dropping out.

Hitherto resistant to change, the education industry had to evolve overnight. Now, with Covid threatening a resurgence and school closures announced in many states, what we need is a long-term sustainable approach to education, or face the long-term implications of children not receiving adequate quality education. 

The way forward is to move into a modus operandi that combines both online and offline approaches to education i.e. Hybrid Learning. A coalescence between both and a malleable model that grants the freedom to switch between the two is essential.

With hybrid learning properly implemented, limited resources can be dispensed across more students, online content can be better leveraged, workspace can be utilized in a more flexible manner, costs can be reduced and the whole process can be made more inclusive. Difficulties found across a majority of schools in India such as dearth of infrastructure and paucity of qualified teachers can be assuaged.

In conjunction, all these factors will ensure the most critical aspect of the endeavor – the continuity of the child in the education process. 

The benefits of quick acclimatization, prior investments in technology and keeping the beneficiaries’ interest central have been experienced first-hand at Lotus Petal, where the year commenced with 644 students enrolled in the educational programs. Today, 612 (~95%) students have been successfully retained and have received uninterrupted learning. This has been encouraging for many other children too, who now seek admission at Lotus Petal.

           

 Hybrid schooling infrastructure has been operationalized. Inspite of less than  50% occupancy in every classroom due to social distancing, we have all students attending classes every day.

The reality of education has shifted from the child being physically present in school each day to holistic hybrid learning. This seems the way forward.