The much-awaited and anticipated start to a new year full of new hopes is here! As we step into 2021, we all will look back at 2020 as a year of the education revolution. Prior to COVID19, educators had been contemplating a change in pedagogy; discussing the skills required for a near future; training young adults for coping with artificial intelligence, but suddenly all of this changed as everyone woke up to a new reality-COVID19. A lot has changed since then, hence with the new year coming in, we need new resolutions for education 2021.

Well-done to Well-being

Learning is an emotional and cognitive experience; we achieve cognition if we are emotionally connected to the learning experience. Teacher and student well being is the urgent priority of the new education revolution 2021, physical well being and most importantly mental well being. With increasing pressure to adapt to a new normal, the stress level has skyrocketed, this can only be addressed by changing the teacher appraisal and student assessment objectives and strategies. The objective has to be well-being over well-done, process-oriented over product-oriented, personal growth over professional growth. Moving away from a culture of extrinsic motivation towards more intrinsically motivated teaching and learning culture has to be the number one resolution of education 2021.

Globalisation to Glocalisation. 

COVID19 has changed the momentum of globalisation; it has forced the businesses, organisations and people to think local. The education revolution of preparing students for a global world has suddenly being forced to change direction and this has left us with the question what next? Even though globalisation will not die a sudden death it has surely slowed down, this has compelled us to delve into the local culture, local knowledge and give it a global perspective; it has narrowed the vision of international mindedness in order to prioritise the immediate needs of the people within the community. This ability to integrate the global objectives into the local perspective and vice versa is glocalisation. The world is heading towards glocalisation hence education resolution will be to prepare a curriculum which integrates local and global perspectives equally into the curriculum. Glocalisation is the true identity and meaning of internationalism for 2021.

Infrastructure to Infostructure

Prior to COVID19 education institutions across the world invested in their physical infrastructure in order to recruit and retain students. In 2020 the physical infrastructures remained unused, teaching and learning continued in a new learning space, the hybrid and online learning space. Schools had to immediately invest into bandwidth, education software, technical support, teacher training and take to social media for communication. Suddenly the conversation changed from the effects of technology in a classroom to the effectiveness of technology in a classroom. The biggest resolution we need is to have a state of the art info-structure for teaching and learning. The education revolution 2021 will see us all investing in info-structure where a milieu of online collaboration, information exchange and artificial intelligence will be called school.

Games to Gamification

Learning by doing is changing to learning by simulations. Thanks to school closure and social distancing, physical games have been replaced by online gamification. By gamification, I mean the use of simulations and games like Minecraft that help students to apply knowledge in virtual reality. Education revolution 2021 will need more gamification software for schools along with firewalls for protection against harmful content and context. Hybrid and online learning will thrive on the gamification of education. Learning through play is a pedagogy currently practised by teachers worldwide, the mode of play has changed hence forcing games to gamification.

We need to step into 2021 with a new set of resolutions for education and new hope for mankind we thank 2020 for ushering the education revolution.