Will higher education return to normal after the pandemic, or will it emerge forever changed?
This was the question discussed at a panel on Monday, titled “The Future of Higher Education in a Post-COVID-19 World,” hosted by the Economist Intelligence Unit and the Qatar Foundation, a private non-profit, which have published a new report on the benefits of different higher education models. Panelists used the report as a springboard to discuss how the coronavirus has impacted higher education across borders and what colleges and universities might learn from the crisis.
The Economist Intelligence Unit’s managing director of public policy, Claire Casey, moderated the conversation, which featured Dr. Tim Blackman, vice chancellor of England-based Open University; Ben Nelson, founder, chairman and CEO of Minerva Schools at San Francisco’s Keck Graduate Institute; Francisco Marmolejo, education advisor of the Qatar Foundation; and Dr. Mary Schmidt Campbell, president of Spelman College in Atlanta.
The coronavirus “has changed the way we learn, almost overnight,” said Sheikha Hind bint Hamad Al-Thani, vice chairperson and CEO of the Qatar Foundation. “If this pandemic has proven anything, it’s that we as a society can change. Things that were impossible are now possible. And although it feels like the world is collapsing around us, we owe it to our children and grandchildren to change what we know isn’t working.”
Prompted by questions from the moderator and their online audience, panelists shared their hopes for what global higher education might look like on the other side of the crisis.
Blackman, who runs an all-online university based in England, described the pandemic as a chance to use digital tools to make higher education more accessible, or as he put it, “an opportunity to reach out, open up access and really show what higher education can do in a crisis like this.”
His institution, the Open University, has been working to offer free learning options, he said, especially for people who have been furloughed or who have lost their jobs in the economic downturn caused by the coronavirus. He emphasized that the spread of online education can help low-income students who may need to balance work and childcare with their schooling.
