Preparing College Students For Post-COVID Market

The pandemic of COVID-19 has changed the landscape of higher education. This has resulted in many colleges and other higher educational institutions converting into e-learning platforms as a sense of urgency. Technology has started playing a vital role in the classroom. Thus, college administrators are seeing how technology can enhance educational operations. According to KPMG Report, online education in India is expected to grow from the current base of 1.57 million users to 9.5 million users in 2021 at a CAGR of 44 per cent.

As colleges are adopting new methods to impart education to their students through the digital platform, it is very important to prepare their students for this sort of education as well by introducing various tools and methods to their system. The introduction of these tools and methods can help a student be digitally literate to keep up with the time and hence will not lag in this fast-paced competition.

Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Colleges incorporating AI will help to personalize a student’s learning experience. AI is beneficial for education by providing learning that is personalized to the preference of each student and helping him/her to adopt the pace to develop the mastery of the topic. AI evaluates a student’s progress and provides feedback as well. 

AI will also make college admissions faster and more personalized. Tutoring Programs based on artificial intelligence teach students the fundamentals. Colleges with online offerings are using AI systems to monitor a student’s progress and to alert professors when there is an issue with a student’s performance. So the AI systems enable the students to get the support they need and for professors to find areas where they can improve their teaching for those students who are struggling with the subject matter. This will make students great at their work, making them excellent candidates for the upcoming market.

Use of Chatbots 

A chatbot can be very useful for students from their admission process to class updates to assignment submission deadlines. Students can get updates on almost everything at any time. From getting information about the upcoming events, scholarships, library memberships, hostel facilities, course modules to clearing doubts, a chatbot will always be available to respond to all their queries.

Once colleges set up their chatbot facility, there will be no need for a student to manually search for simple answers. Chatbots are also efficient in monitoring students’ learning progress. It also helps to provide students with personalized feedback individually and also recommend more relevant learning content by analyzing their learning skills and lacking. This tool will make sure that students are extremely efficient in their work. 

Use of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

As students are becoming more self-aware, they want the best for themselves in terms of knowledge and education. That’s why all colleges and universities need to produce high online traffic to their websites through SEO. 

SEO is especially helpful for those students who are unclear about what they want to do after high school or which course to opt-in their graduation. So a dedicated strategy in SEO for educational institutes will guide through such queries that are popular within the target demographic and will help optimize their websites accordingly. This will guide students to the right institute. 

Learning Management Systems (LMS)

An LMS is a carefully curated system that helps in delivering a course through an interactive medium of videos and images. LMS is also helpful in keeping track and measuring the progress of each student. As pandemic has completely transformed the traditional ways of online learning, LMS proves to be an effective tool for online learning. 

An LMS offers highly customized and flexible solutions to students and provides study materials on their demand. Any student can access the material from anywhere at any time. The built-in tools of LMS help a college to create various kinds of assignments, quizzes, and games. 

To conclude, these are the new-age tools of education that have gained prominence within a short period. To remain relevant in the job market even after COVID 19, it is necessary for the students to continuously update themselves with industry-ready courses. They need to work on their skills to stay resourceful in the long run.

Apurv Verma

Guest Author The author is VP Operations, SRV Media Pvt Ltd