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The COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed our way of learning. Universities and other education institutions moved their lessons online. In her keynote, Betty Vandenbosch talked about the opportunities arising from this development and specific trends in higher education. Betty Vandenbosch is Chief Content Officer of Coursera, a company specialised in providing continuing education offers online. In her presentation, she shared data showing that 80 percent of all countries around the world had not used any digital methods at all before the pandemic. Now, according to Vandenbosch, online learning is here to stay. She is convinced that what started out with a fast, forced adaptation will result in a comprehensive digital transformation of higher education.
Figures published in the Times Higher Education magazine indicate that students welcome the trend towards digital teaching. In a survey, 85 percent stated that they were interested in video lectures. Vandenbosch even claimed “that digital lectures will become the new textbooks”, their most important strong point being that they offer maximum flexibility. Not only can students watch them practically wherever and whenever they want, they can also watch them as often as they want. Digital lectures are also perfectly suited for so-called flipped classrooms: it is not necessary to have long-winded presentations of content during classes, because students can already prepare content at home. This leaves more time for reflection and discussion. Lecturers can use learning analytics to understand the effectiveness of their videos and then use those insights to adapt them so that their students will benefit even more.
In her presentation, Vandenbosch also discussed major online learning trends, identifying four of them: growing blended learning, prioritising employability, expanding equitable access to higher education contents and collaborating with other institutions. Blended learning will continue to become more important, combining on-site and online lectures, Vandenbosch underlined. Nine out of ten higher education institutions in Europe already offer blended learning or plan to introduce blended learning courses. During the pandemic, many institutions started to offer their content online, allowing a student from London to attend courses of a university in Amsterdam, for example.
Now more than ever, it is important that digital continuing education teaches students skills that are needed on the labour market. According to the WEF Future of Jobs Report, more than 85 million jobs will be displaced by automation by 2025. Jobs will change all around the world, the future labour market will definitely be digital. Jobs for which there will be increasing demand in the next five years include data analysts and scientists, machine learning specialists and big data specialists. Completely new jobs will also emerge.
Digital skills are highly suited to online learning. Online learning opens up content to more people. There is, for example, a Google IT Support course available on Coursera, teaching participants the skills required for entry-level digital jobs. The target group is mainly students with no college degree or background in the field. Betty Vandenbosch reported that demand has been incredible: so far, over 600,000 participants have enrolled on the course, which lasts several months. Programmes like this make it possible for everyone to develop new skills online at very low cost. Vandenbosch thinks that it is absolutely conceivable that continuing education programmes will accompany people throughout their working lives. They may start with training for entry-level jobs, for example, then start specialising, earn certificates and one day even go on to complete an academic degree.
Another advantage of online learning is that it reaches people all around the world. In recent years, Coursera has witnessed a pronounced increase in the number of participants from emerging economies. The number of women using online learning opportunities is also on the rise. They are particularly interested in STEM fields: science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Betty Vandenbosch finds this especially gratifying, as those are the fields of the future.
The last trend identified by Vandenbosch is increased cooperation among universities, businesses, organisations and governments. She shared the example of the New York State Department of Labor, which offered access to online courses to people who had recently lost their jobs. After they had completed their courses, a network of local employers connected them to local jobs. A local university had also been involved in this cooperation.
Betty Vandenbosch is convinced that online learning offers flexibility and easy access and will thus contribute to ensuring more equitable access to education and creating a more just world.
