South Korea’s education ministry reported last Wednesday that the nation was allocating more than $110 million for the transition to long-term remote learning. The money primarily will go to transforming classrooms and standard textbooks into formats more conducive to the digital age.
Choi Won-hwi, a leader in the government division that supervises educational instruction, told the Wall Street Journal, “We prepared for remote learning because of the COVID-19 crisis, but now it will be a permanent part of the educational process.”
Despite the modern-age approach to the inevitability of increased remote learning, the government has followed the anti-data, fearful approach of so many other countries when it comes to the recent rise in coronavirus infections.
Late last month, about 200 students and school staff members tested positive for the virus, and it was determined that all students in Seoul would have to take their courses online.
It remains unclear how effective – or ineffective – children are in transmitting the disease, as they make up just two percent of infections. And, infections don’t equal deaths!
As of last weekend, South Korea had 358 deaths from COVID-19 in a country of 51.64 million or 0.0007 percent of the population.
While South Korea shut down schools, neighboring China, where the virus first broke out, sent 195 million students back to the school room.
Last Tuesday, China’s leader Xi Jinping pointed out that by opening the schools, China had “fully demonstrated the clear superiority of Communist Party leadership and our socialist system.”
Interactive U
As for the future of remote learning, South Korea is important to watch, as the country has invested heavily in digital infrastructure, giving it some of the fastest connectivity in the world. Almost 95 percent of South Korean citizens use smartphones.
The country’s advanced educational technology has been the result of a focused government-run, nation-wide technology called Edunet, which was launched in 1996. The software makes watching teachers’ lectures and submitting assignments more efficient.
But feedback reveals some students are missing the personal interaction with students and teachers in the classroom. As reported in the WSJ, a 16-year-old public high school student said, “It’s harder to understand the material and prepare for tests.”
TREND FORECAST: As we had forecast at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak when schools across the globe were shut down in March, it signaled the onset of a 21st century online learning system, “Interactive U,” which Gerald Celente had forecast in his book, “Trends 2000.”
The new education system that will replace the current one, which was invented by the Prussians at the onset of the Industrial Revolution, will offer great investment rewards for OnTrendpreneurs® who wish to seize on this megatrend. Beyond closely monitoring the South Korean online model, for those interested, in profiting and learning from these new educational advancement, Indian companies are leading the field of online learning.