Are we ready to adopt online education?

Ad-Dustour’s Issa Khazaleh said that in terms of the evolution of educational institutions, nowadays, technology has influenced education, mainly due to the invention of the internet. However, the reliance of many schools and universities on technology remains limited, as traditional education remains prevalent.

After COVID-19 conquered the world, people have changed many living concepts and behaviours, Khazaleh said, highlighting that education is one of the first arenas to see such change as school and university attendance is suspended and learning is done remotely.

However, the infrastructure reality in Jordanian universities has posed great challenges to teachers, administrations and students alike, as teachers do not have syllabuses that suit the new teaching mediums, nor do all students have computers or internet access, the writer said.

He argued that Jordan is not ready for the abrupt push into online education for seven reasons, the first being the lack of or unreliable internet connection in many rural or remote areas in the Kingdom.

The second reason is that not all students or teachers have or can have computers, and the third is the added difficulty of providing more than one device for one family, he added.

The fourth reason is that not all teachers are trained on using the new teaching platforms, while the fifth is that, similarly, not all students are trained to use the new technology, Khazaleh said.

He said that the sixth reason is that all syllabuses must be modified in line with remote education, and the seventh is the difficulty of applying remote teaching to students below the sixth grade as they need a social educational environment.