Coronavirus: Online learning the way to go

The outbreak of the global pandemic, the COVID-19, has necessitated a number of innovative ideas to keep society moving.

While the scientific community is frantically searching for a panacea to the deadly disease that threatens to wipe out the human race, society should not stagnate or come to a standstill.

After all, we are told necessity is the mother of invention, and so as the pandemic is determined to tear us apart, it is important that we creatively adopt other ways to satisfy our social needs.

Let the social distancing protocol announced by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo not be misconstrued to mean social disconnection. That is why the decision by some tertiary institutions to resort to online lecturing for one month in the wake of the COVID-19 must be supported.

Last Tuesday, the Minister of Education, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, outlined a number of measures put in place to keep students and even pupils busy while at home, in line with the directive by the President to the Education Ministry to roll out online programmes and distance learning for schoolchildren, in collaboration with the Ministry of Communications.

The Daily Graphic commends the ministry for deploying the learning on multiple platforms to ensure that no student is disadvantaged because of the inability to access a particular platform at a particular location.

We believe that in this era of technology, going virtual with lectures is the right way to go, so that an epidemic like what we are experiencing currently would not disrupt the academic calendar and throw it out of focus.

We think that in these abnormal times, the first step that educational institutions, particularly second-cycle and tertiary institutions, must take is step up e-learning to make teaching and learning more convenient and effective. Virtual learning, indeed, is long overdue, as our educational facilities are being overstretched with the current high demand for tertiary education.

The Daily Graphic is excited that the management of the Laweh Open University College has expressed its willingness and commitment to provide technological infrastructure support for both private and public tertiary institutions in the country to facilitate the provision of quality online and distance education for students through virtual platforms.

Currently, there are a number of educational technology platforms available and which are being used to assist students in some countries, and it will not be bad for Ghana to learn best practices such as this.

We wish to encourage our educational facilities to take advantage of the opportunity made available by the Laweh Open University College to deliver virtual quality education, even in the face of pandemics such as the COVID-19.

Our educational sector should tap the wealth of experience from the Laweh Open University College to improve our online learning. The COVID-19 should not be a barrier to education. We can move our education beyond COVID-19, using modern technology and social media.

Indeed, every misfortune, it is said, is a blessing. Online learning provides a wider network for sharing knowledge with others, unlike in the conventional lecture rooms where the student or learner is virtually limited to his mates in the classroom.

Again, with technology-applied learning, many people can study about a concept at the same time around the world, whereas with the conventional classroom, students are usually limited to the capacity of the lecture room. In this wise, therefore, and now that many people seek knowledge in the face of dwindling resources and inadequate funding to match the demand for education, it is only proper that even post-COVID-19 country must make a concious effort to scale up online learning to give opportunities to as many people as possible to acquire education to the highest level that their ability can cope.