Is the residential university soon going to be a thing of the past? Will online learning displace it in a big way? Will young people opt not to go the universities?
No, no, no, going by article in the FT on the future of the university.
The pandemic has forced a lot of experimentation and improvisation. Blended learning- a combination of online and classroom learning- is pretty much the norm. Alternatives to the 2-3 hour exam are being explored. Online exams through special proctoring mechanisms have come into vogue.
At the end of the day, however, the university will not go away and the residential university will remain dominant. As everybody knows, there is more to the university than classroom learning- the social interactions on campus and group learning have their place. And online learning, many students seem think, is not the real thing.
The most striking fact in the article is that the flow of UK students this year is undiminished, with some universities, such as Cambridge, even seeing a small rise. (Although the experience in the US and Australia seems to be different). That's again because students do not see online as an alternative to the residential university.
What is more likely is that online education will supplement, not supplant, the residential university. It will be an useful aid to classroom learning. And universities will use their learning from the online model to offer it to those who can't make it to university. That will boost revenues at universities- and it will also result in greater inclusion.
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