Solutions and challenges of digital education

In the last year, education has changed dramatically as a result of the rise of distance learning and e-learning. Although several governments had initiated a process of digitization of the education system, the pandemic accelerated the growth and adoption of technologies, especially in developing economies (Latin America), to ensure the continuation of education in the midst of the health emergency. 

Through language applications, virtual tutoring, videoconferencing tools or online learning software, some governments around the world guaranteed their students not to miss school days. Serbia is an example of this. 

Serbian educators quickly adapted to distance teaching and learning, taking full advantage of digital tools and using other resources, such as television broadcasts, to ensure that their population had access to academic lessons while schools were closed. Through online work , educational institutions ensured classes in primary, secondary and vocational education. 

With regard to Latin America, the World Bank highlighted the efforts of four countries, in a region where more than 166 million students were affected by school closures. 

Uruguay, Mexico, Colombia and Chile implemented technological solutionsand educational innovations such as platforms where teachers can train, upload teaching materials, grade homework and dialogue with students, applications for accessing recreational books and study materials in different formats such as text, audio, images and videos, and software for online monitoring of student performance.  

In the case of Colombia, the technology company Nuvu created three solutions for digital education: Campus Notebook, Campus Genius and Campus Analytics .

The first is a collaborative teaching platform that connects students with digital tools that facilitate their learning. The second is an application that accompanies teachers to offer a 100% virtual and quality educational experience, in order to achieve a barrier-free digital education. And, the third is a software to predict the academic performance of students, by identifying the effectiveness of the contents. 

Despite the progress made by countries in guaranteeing education to the population through digital and technological tools, the transition to e-learning has highlighted the socioeconomic gaps that exist between nations and even within them. 

According to the World Economic Forum, many students do not have internet access or lack technological tools to enter virtual classes. While, as of 2018, 95% of students in Switzerland, Norway and Austria have a computer to do their schoolwork, only 34% in Indonesia have one, according to figures from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). 

Thus, the spread of COVID-19 worldwide not only contributed to the growth and adoption of technological solutions to ensure that the majority of students receive virtual classes in the face of school closures, but also highlighted the digital divide that exists in the world.

In some countries, the challenge of ensuring access to education for students still persists, at a time when they are unable to return to the classroom, and when technology is the solution to keep their citizens learning.