Should Parents Send Kids Back to College This Year?
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected educational systems around the world, leading to the near-total closure of college and university campuses and schools. India is not an exception. In fact, this country has been able to manage the situation quite remarkably thanks to well-executed plans and a sound preventive methodology.
India’s nation-wide lockdown in the past two months is unprecedented and seemingly, the safety measure has worked to some degree. Of course, this has an enormous impact on colleges and universities in Pune and all over the country.
The University Grants Commission and other education bodies have issued guidelines specific to the COVID-19 pandemic for Indian higher education institutions, which forced the temporary closing of 1,000 universities and 40,000 colleges.
The students have been sent home and most are currently taking online classes. As parents look to the future, it’s easy to wonder whether their children should be sent back to college this year. After all, we don’t exactly know when these measures will end.
Higher education leaders are concerned that the extended lockdown could impact the sector even further, because COVID-19 and the measures taken to prevent its spread have completely disrupted the admissions cycle, causing a cash flow reduction, among other issues.
Don’t send students back to school without a health safety plan
In response, higher education institutions in India planning for the admissions cycle will need to do so with limited resources and a sound response plan to COVID-9 so they can continue to protect the health of students.
Now, it’s important that colleges and universities in India prepare a strong health safety plan for the fall semester, even if it’s still a long way away. We believe that a strong health safety plan that provides students with access to full-time medical staff is critical in order to manage the risk of an outbreak.
This should put parents’ minds at ease, and students would feel more comfortable coming back to school. We also believe colleges should work alongside local clinics and hospitals so there are reliable, large scale emergency response plans in place.
It’s essential that colleges and universities throughout India examine their readiness and choose the most useful tools at their disposal to prepare for the upcoming fall semester. Both high-tech and low-tech solutions should be used, including online learning platforms, MOOCs, video lessons, and more.
Social distancing is still necessary, and distance learning programs should be implemented to continue higher education in spite of the situation. It’s also necessary to provide support to teachers and students when it comes to using digital tools so they can make the most of it.
Whether or not you should send your kid back to college or university this year will depend entirely on how their higher education facility will handle the upcoming fall semester and how they’re preparing to provide students with the best possible experience.
We don’t want our children to waste more of their time, but it’s also essential to be 100% certain that colleges and universities will have their back and will hold health as one of their top priorities.
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