2020 news covid19 coronavirus and future education 883x432 1

COVID-19 and the future of education

19 May 2020

The article at a glance

How might the coronavirus pandemic impact the future of education and digital delivery of learning? The podcast reflects on the first SHAPE …

How might the coronavirus pandemic impact the future of education and digital delivery of learning?

Education from home on a laptop. The future of education?

The podcast reflects on the first SHAPE Education conference organised in September 2019 by Cambridge Assessment English and Cambridge Judge to discuss how education should adjust to a changing society.

Dr Michelle Darlington, Head of Knowledge Transfer at the Cambridge Centre for Social Innovation, said that education has traditionally been risk-averse, but “now as a result of COVID-19 schools and universities are closed and we do have conditions for innovation, but not in a way we have anticipated.”

Dan Frost, Learning Technology Lead at Cambridge Assessment English, said that with many people now developing “bottom-up innovation to solve problems” it will be interesting to see later on which solutions worked well and how they can be captured and applied more widely. “The challenge to the industry is to learn and to share practices, and to work together.”

Mark Andrews, Digital Learning Programme Manager at Cambridge Judge, advocated that it’s through collaboration within the education sector, learner communities and with organisations outside of the education sector such as technology that we will truly innovate.

They agreed that the way we respond to the crisis now is likely to significantly shape the future of education, so it’s important to engage in dialogue with colleagues from across sectors and share our experiences.