No distance education before 2030

There is no distance education in Lebanon before 2030, or at least before reaching the requirements to guarantee its quality, otherwise it will be a blow to education and the image of education in Lebanon. Yes, online education and learning in its successful forms such as coeducation and hybrid education, keeping in mind that some “Dikenji” confuse the two! They also confuse distance education with distance education, and this is what makes us focus on the concept of educational farms, based on field experiences and international studies. We do not use the concept of farmer in a negative way. Just as the hamburger theory was developed to describe the new generation who want it all, now, effortlessly … so has the concept of educational farms in the world to describe the experiences of educational institutions that the pandemic de Corona forced attention to divergent education. The struggle based on dividing the teaching session between a time for simultaneous teaching and a time for asynchronous teaching on the one hand, and between education ratios (the presence of a teacher or teacher) and learning (the time in which the student learns without a teacher) on the other hand, it is enough to show us that dividing the week has become a plot of land that we can. Its coloration is the same as that of the land cultivated with various types of grains. How, then, when we combine flipped class and hands-on class in the lab, with worries, hands-on work, and project times? This requires attention to ensure the quality of teaching and learning through the Internet, which must be taken into account and set aside by the Ministry of Education.

After the Corona pandemic, the entire world will experience a remarkable development through what is called “The Next Normal”, because we have noticed that working from home has contributed to the development of the homeland’s economy and the preservation of the level of life capacity. Educational, university or school institutions should only prepare their students for success in their social life and work through their positive interaction with digital technology.
Let’s know some terms:
Distance education: that is, 100% education outside the classroom. The failure of distance education in Arab countries in general, since its image is bleak and its reputation negative, perhaps because the concepts that are based on it are wrong, as a result of the mills of false certificates. It also failed because the Conference of Ministers of Higher Education required at least 25% for classroom attendance education for any major.
Online education and learning: Online teaching and learning have been successful because they have contributed to the success of the educational renewal of the educational institution. Especially successful blended teaching and learning models. We stress the importance of quality assurance from the legislature and quality control from the Ministry of Education, because not all farmers in Lebanon are aware of the toxins they bring to the citizens and the nation. This is what constitutes a big citizenship problem!
The blended education does not need to be outside the educational institution, but there is a face-to-face rate for the teacher, and an online learning rate in the educational institution’s laboratories without the presence of the teacher or professor.
With the Corona pandemic, the citizen was forced to stay at home, so the independent component via the Internet was possible through physical distancing outside of school (at home, for example). Outside the educational institution.
Hybrid learning combines blended learning and personal learning from home. This can be used if a student is sick. But it is the response of parents who refuse to allow their children to go to school because of Corona. Within the school’s hybrid education strategy, there is the ability for some students to learn and study from home alone, while some of their peers continue to learn within the mixed teaching-learning model.
The success rate of the distance education experience in Lebanon did not exceed 10%, which means that at least 90% of educational institutions were not prepared to challenge the new forced disruption. Slow internet, power outages, and lack of adequate student access to LMS-based learning and educational sites. School principals mixed learning management platforms with Microsoft Teams in their educational work, all of which represented the same thing … and this is the basis for the failure in last spring’s experience.
The main reason for the failure of technologically prepared institutions is their lack of educational preparation. Educational preparation requires a long-term and ongoing investment in administrative and teaching staff. Some of them need training in the use of the internet and devices, and / and the learning management system, tools and applications, digital content writing, online education methods, online assessment and assessment methods, and other necessary training for the success of the educational process.
There is a big difference between quality and your guarantee. At a minimum, we have five quality concepts: Industrial quality, for example, is the production of products that achieve perfection. And there is the quality of the elite, as the world has witnessed throughout the history of educational institutions that accept elite students, for example, and not others. There is quality concerned with achieving the vision and mission of the institution. We know profitable institutions for which quality represents an interest in the return on investment. And there is the fifth type that is imposed in our days, which is transformational quality, and this is what our digital age today demands of a digital transformation in all fields: administrative, economic, productive, educational, and others.

90% of educational institutions were unprepared for the challenge of forced disruption.

Regarding quality assurance, it is part of quality management and focuses on providing internal confidence to management and external confidence to all parties in meeting quality requirements. This is completely different from what the ministry should pay attention to, which is quality control.
Therefore, when we talk about quality assurance, we are talking about an independent body – we hope to legislate it soon – that is concerned with studying the quality assurance of institutions, programs and decisions, and establishing the standards and rhythms necessary for quality of education, evaluation and scientific research.
It is universally accepted that there is an institution-wide evaluation and a program-level evaluation (a special evaluation for each discipline). But there are also standards for each type of teaching method. There is one frame of reference for open education, another for e-learning and a third for blended learning and teaching.
If educational institutions were prepared technologically, educationally and at the level of quality, the interest of principals, teachers, and female teachers would have been to focus on their preparation for development and emotional support. However, their lack of preparation made them convey their stress to parents and students. This is one of the reasons for the absolute failure to ensure the continuity of the educational process. In fairness to teachers, we must work to train them to prepare them, and this requires a long-term educational strategy, based on exceptional legislation.
A follower of the development of the teaching and learning process through the Internet knows very well that success in this matter has its conditions and controls, and this is what we try to summarize within technological preparation, educational preparation, preparation for the quality assurance, preparation for development and emotional support that the Corona pandemic imposed among the priorities, noting that the main industrialized countries require within the competencies required of each graduate, the sufficiency of emotional intelligence.

* Expert in modernization and educational development

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