Impact Of Coronavirus On Overseas Education Industry And How It Can Be Addressed

Rohit Sethi Apr 19, 2020

According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the school closures in the wake of COVID-19 have disrupted the education of at least 290.5 million students worldwide. While primary-level level schooling in urban areas has gone virtual with students instructed to continue learning online, the situation of students hailing from marginalised backgrounds is worse as they will lose out on their education due to lack of infrastructure.

Impact on aspirants planning to study abroad

In challenging times like these, most students who are preparing to take crucial exams this year for pursuing education abroad are nervous about whether or not their applications will be affected, especially those who Visa have been granted but suspended under further notice. Many students may come across questions like will they be allowed to secure a seat in their chosen university? What if they face a gap of a year or two during the start of their careers or later in the middle of their education journey? What if this gap affects their career in the long term?

The global pandemic has also put a halt on the careers of those student masses for whom it could be the one and only chance to study abroad due to multiple reasons – mainly, the lack of financial support. After all, there is a huge difference between studying abroad physically and taking online classes from a foreign university.

The viral outbreak has also led students to change their learning destinations.

For instance, aspirants that previously preferred Spain - a popular destination for medical programs among aspirants, are now choosing other alternatives like the Caribbean Islands that offer the same course at same fees. Similarly, students of streams like physical education are preferring Australia over Spain, as a safety measure.

Impact on those already pursuing higher education abroad

On the other hand, those who are already pursuing higher education outside their countries are likely to face other challenges, mainly in the form of postponement of internal assessments and relevant exams. Since all their assignments and tests will be delayed, it will have a direct impact on the final results. This will naturally create a gap in their career as no employer will offer them jobs without degrees.

Many students who are in the final year of their studies have experienced major interruptions due to faculty absenteeism. Moreover, graduating amid a global recession is anyway slated to be a poor starting point for their careers. They may either end up accepting lower-paid jobs or having no jobs at all.

Impact on foreign universities

A lot of international universities have switched to providing online learning to students as they are bound to teach both, domestic as well as foreign students. Similarly, there is also a financial struggle for universities as they still got to pay salaries to administrators, faculties and contractual educators.

Government measures

To deal with this viral outbreak that’s engendering serious harm to student careers, UNESCO has recently announced the launch of the Global COVID 19 Education Coalition. The initiative aims to bring together multilateral partners and the private sector, including big industry names such as Microsoft and the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSMA) to deploy remote learning systems in various countries as a step to help them minimize educational disruptions.

Additional measures

To help educate students more effectively during the lockdown, the government can also associate with telecommunication players and work on rolling out zero-rate policies. This could be a great way to facilitate learning material that students find easy to download on their mobile. Another point to note is that remote learning is not only about switching to online education. Here, institutions can also leverage other powerful mediums such as TV and radio and create an amalgamation of these tools to make learning accessible to as many students as possible.

During this crisis, the objective of all education systems across the globe is: addressing the learning crisis and staying safe from the contagion. After all, for all governments, deciding whether or not to close schools and universities is like a choice between two bad options anyway. However, the best, institutions can do in times like these is find out how capable they are in rolling out online learning channels in their respective countries and analyse the strengths and weaknesses in the process. Countries world over can take the on-going crisis as an opportunity to be creative in addressing the issue.