As the COVID-19 issue prolongs, online education market expands … what are potential challenges?2020-05-07Hit:1584
As the COVID-19 issue prolongs, online education market expands … what are potential challenges?
- As the COVID-19 prolongs, demand for online education increases
- Challenges such as implementing server and infrastructure remain
The online education market is expanding as the COVID-19 issue becomes a long-term war. This week, universities nationwide started online, and the demand for online education sites and mobile applications is increasing as the vacation for elementary, middle, and high school students increases. It is noteworthy whether the current COVID-19 will be a catalyst for the expansion of the online education market.
According to related industries on the 20th, major universities in Seoul are conducting classes online. At the beginning of the course, problems such as connection failure due to server overload occurred, but it is now somewhat stable.
Accordingly, some universities, such as Sungkyunkwan University, are showing a move to convert one semester into online classes. Initially, each university was expected to conduct online classes for two weeks starting on the 16th, following recommendations of the Ministry of Education.
Online education sites and apps are also gaining popularity as the vacations of elementary, middle and high school students get longer. Teachers are also actively promoting online classes, such as creating YouTube videos directly to fill the learning gap.
The industry expects that the online education market will be in full bloom in the wake of this COVID-19 incident.
The online education market attracted attention even before the COVID-19 incident, but there were not many cases applied to the actual field. However, this situation is expected to be an opportunity for online education to spread as educational institutions accumulate actual cases. In fact, according to the Naver Connect Foundation, the number of educational institutions using online education platform “Online Class” increased, and in February, the number of applications increased by 200% from January.
Professor Kwon Young-sun of KAIST's School of Technology and Management said, “In the case of KAIST, the total number of students is about 10,000, and it is also a medium-sized class. "The larger schools will have to go through an adjustment period in the next month."
He added, “Now it is very early for students and professors to feel awkward, but in the long term, if you feel comfortable and adapt to the flexible education system that takes classes at the desired time and place, the educational field will also follow.”
However, it is pointed out that the expansion of servers for seamless classes and establishment of various systems are the tasks.
Currently, some universities are known to check the status of students by participating in teaching classes as well as professors when conducting online lectures. Therefore, it is pointed out that it is necessary to establish related systems such as manpower reinforcement to continue the online lecture.
Some say that institutional improvement should also be supported. Existing online lectures were limited to 20% of all lectures, but the Ministry of Education temporarily solved them due to the COVID-19 incident. Therefore, it is the key to the spread of online education that continues this trend even after the situation has calmed down.
Some point out that improving the quality of lecture content is also an important issue. This is because in some universities, controversy has arisen by professors replacing documentary classes without conducting lectures. In the case of preschool, elementary, middle, and high schools, there are limitations such as lack of content to use e-learning learning centers and educational broadcasts (EBS) operated by each metropolitan and provincial offices of education.
An industry insider said, “At actual field teachers, we are continuing to attempt to post high-quality content on YouTube by learning video editing technology. If we acquire the know-how and get used to it, we think that the content-related part can be solved naturally.”