2020 showed up with its own challenges and a lot of education institutions are overwhelmingly asking “what next ?”
To them I say, embrace the change, because it is inevitable and it has come to stay. It is 7 months into the year 2020 and the year is closing in on you. If there is a time to act, that time is now.
As a consultant, handling both sides of the coin, it becomes even more interesting for me, because I receive calls from prospective students, as well parents, asking “what should I do”, “should I just hold on and forfeit going to study this year?”
To you all, I will want to repeat myself again by saying “Time waits for no one”; start the program you want to do now and never delay, especially, if the school has offered you an opportunity to start online pending the pandemic is over and you can resume back to classroom learning.
Also, some parents have expressed their concern over the idea of paying so much money for their child to be taught online. They believe online courses should be cheaper; other parents believe that online studies are less impactful than classroom learning.
To those parents, I will like to share the 3 points below.
1) Studying online is not full of disadvantages as you are painting it to be. With this new normal of online education, students are learning some very valuable skills that employers will expect them to possess when entering into the professional working environment.
Now companies are talking about moving to a predominantly remote working model after the pandemic is over, as they are getting as much or more done, and have the opportunity to save huge on costs on office spaces and utilities.
2) The best experts from Harvard University, Imperial College London, The World Health Organisation, and other top research centres have made it clear that this pandemic is not going away in a few months like the Flu.
Lockdowns are likely to continue on and off in 6 to 8-week cycles for the next 18 to 24 months. This pandemic will continue until either enough people have been infected to have achieved herd immunity or for a vaccine to have been developed and given to enough people. Do you really want your child to waste 2 or more years waiting, while his/her mates are getting educated and getting more competitive in the market, and also increasing their chances of getting employability post-pandemic era?
3) There is certainly a lot of job losses all around the world and for anyone to prove to an organization that he/she deserves to be retained or hired, such person must have the peculiar experience or must be knowledgeable about the position and have the ability to display a formidable contribution to the organizational growth.
This means there will be high standards and requirements, to get employment, which will further deplete the chances of unprepared and the uneducated. How competitive will your kids be in such an environment with no certificate to give them an edge, in a post-pandemic environment?
I will encourage you, parents, to embrace the new normal and advise you to do what is best for your child’s studies and their future careers.
I will also want to end by saying that at the end of this tough time, we will be called “The Greatest Generation”, by continuing to show that no adversity is greater than your determination to overcome all challenges that came with 2020.
“Courage is the most important of all the virtues because, without courage, you can’t practice any other virtue consistently.” – Maya Angelou.
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