Bracing For A Hybridized Model Of Learning In 2021

AK Srikanth Jan 08, 2021

That 2020 has been a watershed year, and a year where the paradigm shifted for education, for the family unit and for the society at large, is a concept that has featured in many webinars, blogs, posts and articles – in fact, interminably so, as some would comment! This year has rocked the boat in a fashion that’s almost a Darwinian Rhapsody – the ones that were able to adopt, survived. What is difficult to come to terms with, however, is that the changed paradigm is being perceived by some as the next state of permanence.

Yes, there are a few aspects that have changed for the long haul, if not changed for good. The perception of the value of an educator in the minds of work-from-home parents, the realization of the importance of the role of fathers in childcare, and the comprehension of the importance of hygiene in our hourly lives – these are aspects that we would hopefully remember as the positive lessons we all learned in the crisis. These should not be allowed to slip away into a crevice as society moves back to the Pre-Covid state of ‘normalcy’.

And then there are those that would keep morphing with time. And this is the yardstick on which we could examine the age-old question of how best we make our little ones learn.

The evolution of education delivery during the pandemic

In the months from March to May this year, the preschool model shifted from classrooms to online education. Online education (and education by correspondence courses alongside that) had existed long before this crisis. It was considered an option for those that did not have the bandwidth to attend regular classes, and mostly for college-level degrees. With the onset of the pandemic, with containment zones, lockdowns and fear percolating the world, online education was the only viable option left to continue education. Not the best option, but the only viable option. And preschool systems like ours moved from a no-screen policy at our premises to an online education delivery system for our children!

By August, the number of online enrolments, and the readjusted comforts of parents and children to the new formats, led many to believe that this was the new reality in the future post-COVID world. By October, with the onset of greater freedom of movement, we saw malls and restaurants reopen, public places coming back to life, and traffic increasing to levels not seen in the pandemic life of the last six months. And at this time, we started seeing the other side of online education – children were unable to concentrate and the inefficiencies of an education system that functioned without social interactions came to the forefront.

At this juncture, we introduced a (long overdue) in-person format where our teachers and caregivers started visiting children’s homes to teach/there. Between November and December, the admissions for online started plateauing and the teacher at home demands saw a steep increase. The easing up of movement, the fatigue with online education and the need for social interaction was driving this. The sharp rise in admission numbers make it easy to believe that this was the new education model of the future – teachers at home teaching children individually or in groups. But, is it?

2021 for early years education and care

The answer lies not in one of the choices, but possibly in all of the options hybridized to meet the unique requirements of each family.

With vaccines visible in the horizon, it seems likely the end of the pandemic is in sight. However the logistics of vaccinating a nation of 1.3 billion will take its time, and therefore, predictably, we shall navigate back gradually into the world we knew before the pandemic, not jump back into it. 2021 will be that year – when the world finds its way back to the pre-pandemic familiarity.

Going by reports, by June of 2021--the start of the next academic year--we are likely to see 20 to 30 million Indians vaccinated. It would be unlikely that children would be able to throng back into the classes – it is more likely that there would be a graded and cautious return. The gap that would be created by this restrained re-approach would have to be filled in by both online learning systems, and by teachers coming to the homes of children and addressing their needs in the form of social bubbles – where a few children living in proximity would learn from a teacher in a location within the perimeters of their homes or communities.

Once the pandemic becomes a distant memory, schools will come back to life. For pre-schools, however, the social bubble model that many countries have mastered over the years may well continue, especially with families that traditionally have seen no need for a daycare system to send the child to.

Moving from Darwinian to a humanitarian approach

Recent research has pointed out that in the first 2000 days of a child's life the neurons in the brain develop at a rate of 700-1000 per second. The experiences in these 2000 days is a strong predictor of an individual’s health, learning and behaviour throughout life. For children who have lost out 200 days of the first 2000 days* of learning or for those who have experienced interrupted learning during this time, our priority in 2021 will be all about creating a conducive learning environment with adequate social stimuli to help them thrive.

It will take herculean efforts by schools and parents to create a stable learning and care system for the little ones in the future years. We will need to work fast and collaborate on models that are not completely dependent on one format. A more flexible and hybrid model with an online—social bubble—at school options should be the way to go to cater to the needs of different parents. When schools reopen, schools will need to be agile with operations, scheduling and safety response mechanisms, among others. Parents too, on the other hand, must be understanding towards decisions made by schools at the local level and adapt to changes quickly.

Parent-teacher alliance based on trust and a shared vision is the shot in the arm that this nation needs to slowly but surely bring back children into a sustainable system of learning.