COVID-19 could be the mega maleficent of the 21st Century with almost all countries shutting TVET institutions to break the chain of transmission. However, the training and education of our youth has to continue because staying idle is contrary to the constitutional foundation of civil societies.
The outbreak of coronavirus disease was recorded rising in the world since December 2019. As a result some institutions started offering online education to their students, the majority of the students have not yet benefited from distance learning. Since youth are our human capital, we must use alternative way to offer education to them in order to continue their learning. The new normal brings on different responsibilities for teachers, students and parents. As for teachers, their duties do not significantly differ from before since they were also required to help maintain discipline in institutions and monitor students then. This new normal has, however, allowed us to implement several measures. For instance, we wanted to reduce the number of students per class from the previous 35 to 40 students. This has never materialized before due to limitations in space and teacher availability.
The objective of this webinar is to share the standard operating procedures (SOPs) for opening of TVET institutions. There is an urgent need for all educators to get ready to re-open institutions for which TVET institutions need contextually-relevant SOPs for their effective operations in order to make TVET institutions safe learning places for students, teachers and parents.
Objectives
To share the post COVID-19 SOPs for operating TVET institutions.
To describe the social distancing policy related to students, parents and teachers;
The society is facing an unprecedented crisis due to threats of a global health pandemic. At the beginning of 2020, an unprecedented blow due to COVID-19 has affected the health of hundreds of thousands of people. It continues to claim the lives of people in many parts of the world. Perhaps this is the biggest crisis of the 21st century, with a high number of recorded deaths. As a result, there is a widespread learning crisis due to the school closures in many countries. According to UNESCO Global monitoring of schools closures caused by COVID-19 188 countries are affected by school closures. As a result, 1.54 Billion learners are unable to attend school and learning activities. The scale of impact is also reflected in the TVET sector. With a sudden halt in normal running of technical and vocational schools and training institutions, students, trainees and apprentices, are systematically unable to continue planned learning and training processes.
Figure 1. Global monitoring of school closures. Source: UNESCO
In efforts to mitigate the short term and long-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments have deployed strategies and approaches corresponding the preparedness of countries to tackle the issue in different fronts. For example, efforts are in place to promote self-isolation of people at home, social-distancing, the closing of shared frontiers, the strict observance of sanitary measures, the restriction of some labour activities, accelerated testing, the closing of schools, universities and prevention of social gatherings All these urgent measures are applied to prevent the worsening of the state of pandemic. However, long-term measures also need to be commenced to manage the serious consequences on the economy, society, culture and education worldwide.
Education and training systems around the globe have started to respond to the situation. Under the circumstances, TVET, an important subset of education and which takes place in secondary, post-secondary and tertiary levels, including work-based learning, continuing training and professional development , cannot be a silent spectator. The essence of how TVET can play an important role in the time of crisis, is discussed in this paper.
How TVET institutions are responding to the crisis
Broadly speaking, the response of education and training systems to the crisis carries two levels of responsibility. The first one acts upon the urgency of the situation (emergency) to avert the occurrence of more serious crisis, with immediate negative effects such as learning interruption that can delay education targets, and systematic entry to the next level of learning or the labour market. The second one acts upon the situation with some stability evidenced in the way temporary measures are working and there are more long-term solution in sight to be developed, to mitigate the far-reaching impact of the crisis. Either way, systems are expected to reach a level of stability with the employed measures, whether they are temporary or long-term to appreciate if the right solutions are meant to stay in place for a long time. In the context of varied developmental structure with specific economic, social and cultural characteristics, the degree of response of institutions is a reflection of their ability to discern the urgency and stability of approach, capacity, the readiness of systems and institutional actors, and availability of resources that suit emergency situations.
Objective
How to bridge the ongoing interruptions of learning due to the closure of schools
How to prepare for mindset changes in the post COVID-19 recovery
How Vocational Excellence approaches are validated even in the time of COVID-19?
TVET in the Context of COVID-19: Challenges and Opportunities
