In the past 2020, in the face of complicated developments of the Covid-19 epidemic, the education sector has actively participated in the prevention and control of the Covid-19 epidemic. This is also an important milestone to push the education sector into the digital era.
According to the PISA 2020 report recently published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Vietnam’s online learning to prevent and fight Covid-19 has many positive points compared to other countries and regions. Specifically, Vietnam has 79.7% of high school students studying online. This is higher than the average of the OECD countries (67.5%).
However, in the face of a digital age and strong impulses from progressive social demands and improving the quality of training and education, Vietnam still has a big step forward for a digital transformation. This article will give you an objective insight into the five biggest challenges to argument passing in education.
1. Technology infrastructure
Firstly, digital transformation requires new technology infrastructure, new equipment for both learners, direct instructors, educational institutions and regulatory agencies. Comes with hardware devices are software applications, platforms for all educational and management activities of all levels to take place on it. If the application of IT in education mainly refers to separate programs, software, digital transformation requires all these individual things to be compatible and interconnected, integrated and accessible on the same platform. This platform enables teaching, administration, learning, testing, assessment, testing, learner management and teaching, as well as all student-teacher interaction. A stable Internet connection is a natural necessity for this platform to work.
Digital transformation requires telecommunications infrastructure to develop to a certain extent, which is much related to the level of socio-economic development of each locality. Therefore, the education sector cannot go alone, but must accompany and coordinate with other disciplines. This can be a significant challenge because they are accustomed to operating independently.
2. Management thinking and competence
To operate such a system of course requires the thinking and management capacity of education as well as school leaders to change. They must find a way to capture what is possible in virtual space, effectively exploit technology for this purpose. They need to equip knowledge and digital thinking to be able to master technology and understand the limits of technology.
Moreover, digital transformation depends greatly on contextual factors. Methods and transition do not have a common formula, requiring industry leaders to develop their own strategy, solutions and transformation roadmap without much reference from experience and practice from other industries, other countries.
3. Skills in using technology
Digital transformation also cannot be successful if the teachers do not have the skills to use the technology. Teachers need to envision ‘seeing’ their students learning if they don’t meet face to face and they can grasp and appreciate what they are from the learners’ side. Of course, they must always have the support of technical staff and technology experts in this process to ensure that teaching goes smoothly. They also need new skills to organize teaching, ‘keep students’ in the’ class’, and keep students’ attention on learning tasks and activities. They are the leading and most important factor determining the success of online training and digital transformation processes.
Traditional schools almost do not have ‘staffing’ for IT staff. But when deploying large-scale online training, some administrative positions are no longer available, instead it is in great demand for technicians. Of course, schools always have a solution to outsource this service, but the allocation of expenditures often changes, leading to the practice of school governance and financial management as well.
4. Student’s readiness
When the 2019-2020 school year was interrupted by the translation of Covid-19, we conducted a survey about ‘readiness for online learning’ with faculty and university students. Survey results show that learners have a much lower level of readiness to learn online than teachers. Up to 76% of students surveyed (many branches and many different provinces and cities) are not ready for online learning for many reasons. Besides the technical reasons such as telecommunications equipment and infrastructure, there are problems due to the teaching methods and techniques of the lecturers that have not convinced the learners. Learners need to be prepared mentally, skillfully, and supported to ensure sufficient equipment infrastructure to carry out online learning. They also need to be taught how to study online effectively.
5. Inequality in education
We often think that the digitization of educational activities will bring ‘digital equity’ (digital equity) thanks to the advantage of access to technology without limitation in space and time. However, this could also deepen the inequality in access to education between regions and students with different socioeconomic (SES) conditions. Students who do not have access to good telecommunications infrastructure in mountainous or rural areas will find it difficult to access high-quality education but also basic education as important resources for the study.
Students with disabilities (hearing or visual impairments or mobility impairments that interfere with the operation or control of equipment) are also at great risk of experiencing digital inequality due to problems related to input factors. (books, documents, languages, equipment …) and educational process (manipulation, communication with equipment, software, teachers …). For digitizing documents and materials for target groups, they must use their own language system such as sign language, so there will certainly be many limitations, no priority, many disadvantages and disadvantages for the group of people. study this.
There are probably many more issues that will emerge in the implementation that we have not fully anticipated in the scope of this article.
Conclusion
In education, digital transformation is all about transforming what is needed to be able to deploy online education. There is no specific formula for this process, but it is possible to use educational performance evaluation frameworks as well as educational quality assurance frameworks to guide the transition. The role of leadership, organization, coordination, and resource mobilization at the system level will be key to determining the shape of new education. In addition to ensuring educational efficiency, the most important goal that digital transformation must achieve is equal access to education for all types of learners, including students with disabilities.
