Future of Education in APAC

 

Sketchnote about the future of education

Scott Beaumont, President of Google for Asia Pacific (APAC), shared insights from a conversation with Andreas Schleicher—Director for Education and Skills at the OECD as part of Google’s APAC Beyond series of talks looking at the economic and social outlook beyond the coronavirus. 

S.B.: Looking at it from a global perspective, what lessons did you take from a shift to remote learning on this scale? 

A.S.: It reinforced two things for me. First, learning is not a place but an activity, and education and technology must work better together in the future. Second, education is not a transactional experience. It’s a social experience...

They went on to discuss the role of technology in education moving forward. 

"So far, the way we teach via technology has been quite traditional. But where social distancing means there will continue to be capacity constraints in schools, we need different approaches in areas like project-based learning and working as a team."

In the concluding comments, they went on to touch on the lack of access to technology in the region. Even in Singapore, we noticed the digital divide although there were clear attempts and efforts made to bridge the gap. The other matter mentioned was about culture. 

"...creating a culture of technology in schools will take time, but we’re seeing progress. These are steps we can build on, not just to mitigate the impact of school closures or restrictions, but to rethink how we provide education in future."