Curated by the Knowledge Team of ICS Career GPS
Education
Digital divide, educator development – challenges ahead
Excerpts from an article published by the India Today Web Desk
The year 2020 has revolutionised the education sector across the globe. The pandemic shook the educator and student communities alike, as the education system headed for a near-total digital format.
Today, as the nation prepares to step into the ‘new beginning’ of 2021, the ecosystem needs to step up to help overcome the enlisted challenges that await the education sector.
Lack of learner perspective
Covid-19 has played a crucial role in highlighting the digital divide in India. It is feared that the lockdown will lead to an increase in dropout rates amongst students residing in rural and semi-urban areas.
Despite the rise in wireless users in recent years, semi-urban and predominantly rural India are miles apart in their online presence (27 subscribers to 100 people in rural areas, according to the 75th National Sample Survey of India). This adds to the existing challenges of unbalanced access to basic education infrastructure in the form of teachers, classrooms, study material and teaching pedagogies.
Educated employment is another major problem faced by India, which the National Education Policy 2020 (NEP) aims to address by focusing on skill development, entrepreneurship, critical thinking, problem-solving and industry-relevant knowledge.
Lack of teaching resources
As stated in a Niti Aayog report, a single teacher may be handling 100+ students in rural areas as a result of the shortage of trained teachers. The deficit of trained teachers is another issue according to the 2015-16 Education Ministry data, which revealed that 1.1 million of the 6.6 million teachers employed at the elementary level were untrained.
The pandemic highlighted some of the deep-rooted problems such as lack of exposure to necessary teaching tools, engaging learning strategies and industry-relevant curriculum that teachers across India face, as they struggle to broaden the learning horizons of their pupils. And if that was not all, COVID-19 has further disrupted the teacher-learner way of interaction, from the four walls of a classroom to fit a 13-inch screen.
These challenges need a multi-stakeholder approach to be addressed efficiently and effectively.
Digital platform players have a key role to enable transformation across 4 areas:
1. Leveraging AI
Building AI-based experiential learning platforms that help increase the learner engagement, similar to physical platforms, is the need of the hour.
It will help create a familiar atmosphere for the learner as well as enable educators to maintain the necessary decorum. This also includes building applications that offer alternate models for lab learning and vocational training.
2. Aggregating partner ecosystem
Digital technologies should act as a point of confluence bringing numerous stakeholders in the field of education, enacting different roles like infra providers, content providers, career guides, etc.
These firms are playing key roles in offering end-to-end services, ensuring that issues are addressed holistically with technology as an enabler.
E.g. one of the solutions for the digital divide could be the availability of low-cost education devices capable of working in a network-less scenario.
3. Enable educator transformation through leadership
It’s time for educators to take the lead, comprehend the nuances of a digital school and step ahead as digital leaders. Change management programmes can help prepare heads of institutions lead this change.
The focus should be on transforming the educators – this would typically include innovation in the teaching space to promote effective learning outcomes. A comprehensive programme should help teachers and instructors learn new skills for digital education.
4. User experience with service delivery integration
A unified, end-learner experience is the result of the composition of educators, infrastructure, hardware and software services. It simultaneously results in the integration of various teaching-learning elements.
This would require tech support to plug-in multiple pedagogical elements like games, assessments, hands-on components, seamlessly in one learning path. Typically, this also includes, providing industry-relevant certification courses.
Career
Understanding Empathy: How EQ improves your career impact
Excerpts from article by Chris Westfall, published in Forbes
According to Psychology Today, individuals facing consistent trauma (in other words: people living through the pandemic) can find themselves facing “compassion fatigue”.
Worn out, many are feeling the effects of extensive burnout. That short fuse shows up in a lack of consideration for others.
While many regard empathy as a soft skill, true leaders see the power inside of deeper understanding – and value the ability to continually access empathy, now more than ever. Because, at its core, empathy is about understanding: being able to see the world from another person’s viewpoint. Without that ability, teams break down. Leaders lose respect. Individuals are not recognised, and potentials go unrealised.
1. Empathy is not sympathy
Seeing other’s circumstances and really walking a mile in their shoes isn’t about feeling sorry for someone. Sympathy has its place, but empathy is about seeing things as they are for another person, without getting lost in your own feelings. A manager, filled with sympathy for an underperforming employee, may be inclined to cut corners or make excuses to try and assist – when what’s really needed is something different.
Because acting out of sympathy isn’t the whole picture: if you’re lost in your own emotions, how can you help others to work through theirs? Empathy means seeing and understanding the feelings of another; emotional intelligence helps you to manage your moods in the midst of that recognition.
2. Cognitive compassion is a vital leadership skill
Empathy is sometimes described as “feeling with” someone. As a coach to business leaders, I’m always feeling with my clients – but I work hard not to get lost inside their world. Emotional intelligence (EQ) is needed to help balance what others are seeing with what needs to be seen next. Cognitive Compassion is another way of describing emotional intelligence: technically, sensing another person’s emotional state without allowing it to effect your own. The capacity to be aware of emotions – and express your own in a way that’s measured, useful and appropriate – is central to leadership success.
3. Emotional Intelligence is career fuel
Understanding the emotional state of others is vital to the success of any leader. And that’s not just because EQ and empathy are scarce right now. People need leaders who can say, “I see you” and mean it. Maybe even more importantly, “I feel you.”
Acknowledging that this pandemic has taken something from all of us is a powerful step towards unity – and towards finding new results. Because, if you can’t see where your team is right now, how can you get them where you need them to go? Every journey begins at the same place: it always starts at now. Seeing where people are is vital to your impact – and to your career.
Empathetic leaders help people to win in ways that they may not have discovered just yet. It’s time to stop feeling sorry for ourselves and our circumstances. It’s time to acknowledge where we are, and make some smart choices about moving forward.
(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in the article mentioned above are those of the author(s). They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of ICS Career GPS or its staff.)
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