Education future-proof? How to fight the main obstacles in education in 2021

Disastrous long-term consequences of the digital failure in Homeschooling 

The year 2020 was like no other - especially in the education sector, everything previously known was turned upside down. The fact is that the public education system has brought digital failures in many places. A study by Oxford University in the Netherlands shows that homeschooling - as it is currently practiced - can lead to a loss of education. In this study, the educational loss during homeschooling was around 20 percent! Not surprisingly, given OECD estimates, an average of one-third of school days are lost in OECD countries. The learning lost during school closure can mean a three percent drop in lifetime income for the Corona generation, adding up to hundreds of billions of euros in losses by the end of the century, according to OECD Education Director Andreas Schleicher. Fatal errors in distance learning: we can no longer afford this in 2021. Digitization of education needs to be prioritized in many countries in Europe, with German-speaking countries leading the way. It is frightening that it takes a global pandemic for digital education to finally enter our societal agenda in earnest. The way children learn today needs to be revolutionized!

Wish list to our governments: Open the doors to digital education, finally!

Pretty much all areas of life have changed drastically in the last century. We talk about digitization all the time. How can it be that our education system, for example in Austria, is still the same as it was 100 years ago? Digital teaching is still in its infancy, especially in German-speaking countries. In many places in Austria and Germany, we have failed miserably in our attempt at switching to homeschooling or distance learning from one day to the next. Why were we not better prepared? Hopefully, it is finally clear to everyone involved that teaching and learning should no longer be considered the same after these experiences! In Germany in particular, the education system is highly fragmented due to the strong federalism, and an overarching implementation of quality criteria and guidelines for digital teaching is very difficult. This is not the first time that politicians have been asked to finally create a framework that enables teachers to teach effectively and motivationally, even at a distance.

Virtual classroom: Setting teachers up for success!

It will not be enough to equip every schoolchild with a tablet or laptop. Above all, teachers need to know how to create and use technical devices and digital learning content, how to inspire and motivate students via online video chat, and how to promote self-motivated and independent learning at a distance. Teachers were thrown in at the deep end here - unprepared and without proper training. The importance of the quality of the teaching profession is undisputed - teachers have a fundamental role in the development of students. A 2015 study of 18 countries by the OECD indicates that there is a correlation between the Pisa study results for students and the PIAK study test results for teachers. If the teachers did well, the students results in that class were also better.

In a survey conducted by GoStudent of parents in Germany and Austria whose children receive online tutoring, 87 percent of the parents where faced with several challenges during the time of Home Schooling. After all, two-thirds of the parents surveyed criticized the teachers. Likewise, almost two-thirds would like teaching staff to be better prepared for distance learning in the future. 66 percent of respondents would like to see better content, and 56 percent of parents would like to see better tools. An internal GoStudent analysis shows that there was a massive need to catch up during the school shutdown in Germany and Austria in spring 2020: during the period when schools were closed and switched to distance learning, the consumption of online tutoring units was 75 percent above the monthly average! Digging into private pockets to make up for learning deficits in regular classes - a model for the future? It is clear that parents cannot and should not replace the teaching profession. It is advisable to set up a comprehensive teaching program for teachers at the state level so that they can successfully handle distance learning in the future. This requires high-quality and motivating digital learning content, appropriate end-user devices, and the know-how to use them in the classroom. The most important thing, however, is the teaching staff themselves: Only if they manage to ensure inspiring and high-quality teaching at a distance can the danger of educational deficits be counteracted.e

Use the Corona-momentum for higher awareness of digital education offers

One may find few positives in the Covid crisis. But if this pandemic has done one thing for our education policy, it has been the "aha" moment when it comes to digital education solutions. Those who still rejected online tools in 2020 have at least had to give them a chance now. Parents were suddenly working from home and discovering the benefits. The fact that meetings can be conducted efficiently and effectively from home via online video tools - another important realization. So why shouldn't your own children be able to learn with online tools as well? While in February 2020, 30 percent of all parents still rejected tutoring with GoStudent for the simple fact that the lessons take place via Zoom meeting, by the end of September 2020, only five percent of parents did. Ed-tech startups like GoStudent have been shooting through the roof and since late 2019 - even before the Crisis hit Europe - and receive considerable attention from internationally recognized investors.

Learning from the private sector: The future of education can be our homes

Various ed-tech start-ups are showing the way: Providing engaging and motivating learning opportunities from home is not a Herculean task. When it comes to digital education, the public system can learn something from the private sector! Private-sector offerings can also be transferred to the public education system in the form of cooperative ventures, if one only dares. To this end, it is also advisable to network different public educational institutions across the board and to exchange best practices and lessons learned. Trapped in the comfort zone, the public sector in particular is said to do things the way they have always done them. Looking outside the box allows for new ways of thinking and forward-looking changes that could significantly modernize and improve our education system. As is common practice in the private sector, we urge teachers to network! Share your experiences for ideal teaching and learn from each other. Why not let yourself be inspired by another teacher for your own lessons? As we all know, the best ideas are not born in one's own head, but through exchange and discussion with other enthusiastic colleagues. I'm sure I'm not just talking about GoStudent when I say that we ed-tech startups are happy to contribute our expertise and experience to help shape the digitization of teaching and improve it together with the public education system!

China as a role model for fighting the shortage of teachers?

According to UNESCO, more than 70 million teachers will be needed worldwide by 2030. In Germany, there will be a shortage of over 20,000 primary school teachers by 2025 compared to the demand in schools. A look at China shows that there are solutions to these challenges. A virtual teacher - for example, a luminary in the field of physics - is streamed to a wide variety of classes across the country via online video streaming. Schoolchildren thus receive high-quality instruction regardless of where they live.Virtual teachers gives children access to top instruction - for the first time without disadvantaging those children who are not fortunate enough to live in a city where there are many good teachers. The students are still supervised in the classroom by an educator who structures the lessons and is available as a contact person for questions or assistance. This model can also help to ensure that teacher shortages in Europe do not automatically lead to a reduction in the quality of teaching.

AI-based learning: Getting “teaching” out of the black box

Education has been accepted as a "black box" for a very long time. While in many other industries, in ed-tech we also work in a data-driven way - we set goals, measure them, and analyze them on an ongoing basis in order to provide a smart basis for decision-making, the education system has apparently not yet taken note of any of this. The goal must be to find out how the ideal lesson can be designed. What are the requirements for the format and the teacher to get the best out of it for each child? GoStudent works with the AI-company imotions from Scandinavia, which analyzes the emotions of students and our tutors. Our goal is to find out how to create the world's best one-on-one tutoring - based on data only. Why is tutor A's teaching more efficient and effective than tutor B's? We are currently working on gaining valuable insights here that we can also take into account for recruiting future tutors or tutors for GoStudent to improve their quality even further. Another important question we are investigating in this context is how children learn best. Using the imotions software, we can measure 32 points on the face, which tells us something about the child's emotion. Eye tracking methods can measure how concentrated or focused the student is with the video screen used to deliver our online lessons. Of course, this form of emotion measurement is only one small piece of a larger puzzle of how to improve the quality of instruction. Critics and detractors would say we are trying to invade the privacy of the child and make their emotions transparent. The bottom line is that our overarching effort is to bring teaching out of the black box. By using artificial intelligence with children and tutors via online teaching, we can find out in the long run what exactly a particular teacher is doing better than all the others and how this affects the performance of the children. 

How to overcome the main obstacles for education in 2021?

Digital tools for teaching, the appropriate know-how among teachers, and supportive structures on the part of education policy are essential factors in ensuring that digitization in education can finally get off to a successful start. Right now, the momentum of attention and acceptance of digital educational offerings can be used to accelerate processes in this direction. If we dare to look beyond Europe's borders toward the East, there are already solutions for how digital education can even be used to solve tomorrow's major problems - the teacher shortage, for example. Ultimately, by drawing on data that can be determined using artificial intelligence, we can learn how to design digital lessons so that children receive the best learning environment and can thus develop their full potential.

GoStudent builds the no.1 global school. By connecting every student with the ideal teacher, we enable them to unlock their full potential - for a self-determined future.