Since the beginning of 2020 school education has been facing unprecedented difficulties and interruptions globally. Almost everywhere in the developed world the teaching shifted overnight to remote, online-based, digital mode in response to suddenly imposed lock-downs. Gradually, it is becoming clear that the foremost challenge to the school education in periods of remote, digital teaching/learning is not that much the technology but rather the absence of the socialization aspect of education. Almost on par with it -beyond here and now and in terms of possible severity and harmful impact- comes the challenge of the seriously underutilized potential of the digital educational platforms to provide equal access to high-quality educational content and guidance to each and every pupil and student. Not taking advantage of this opportunity strengthens the risk of proliferating and deepening already concerning educational inequalities.
It is not only dark clouds on the horizon. There is a silver line, and what a line it is. Without speculating about the specifics of the near future, projecting current social and educational trends and accounting for technological developments, it is possible to sketch a picture of an educational institution that is achievable and serves the best educational interest of every schoolchild. There the teaching and learning is individualized and globalized at the same time. Individualized: to account for the learning speed and strategies of each and every pupil and student as much as for the normative educational objectives. Globalized: to benefit globally from educational content and resources already massively accessible and affordable to students and teachers. Profiting from globalized and individually adjustable digital preforms for educational content, able to transform the way children learn and develop skills, the school can preserve its socializing function, strengthen it and even turn it into its raison d'être. Instead of being a transmitting mechanism or even a magnifier of socioeconomic stratification (as, regrettably, sometimes it is), the school could be an incubator for talent, regardless of the socioeconomic or other background of its students. Digitization can help the school to be locally-relevant, embedded in the community it serves and actually - part of it. As Utopian as this vision seems to be, the already started process of educational digital transformation might help to get closer to it. But we shouldn’t be blinded by the silver line and lose sight of the dark cloud behind: we cannot afford to forget that the digitization of education caries a risk too - of bringing a quite Dystopian future of sustained and even accelerated social inequalities, invaded privacy, children deprived of opportunities to develop adequate social skills.
Having a vision of the school education to provide our children with, and keeping in mind the challenges and risks, what should a feasible digital-transformation plan address? Naturally, there is no universal recipe and national specifics must be kept in mind but certainly a number of overlaps and common issues exist. Keeping this is mind and taking Bulgaria as a reference country, at least the following might be considered:
securing broad public support and most of all – the support of the parents;
assisting the teachers to realize that the digital transformation enhances the importance of their pedagogical roles and positions while changing key aspects of the teacher's profession. Given that these changes are already knocking on the doors of their classrooms (and that even this figure of speech might be already getting a bit of out of fashion), any digital-transformation plan should have as its priority strengthening the qualification and motivation of each and every teacher to adjust to an education system blending classroom and remote teaching;
making sure that:
a) universal access for each and every schoolchild to digital educational content (this includes at least providing a suitable device and proper internet connection) and guidance is guaranteed; and
b) challenges left over from previous periods are swiftly dealt with to prevent them transforming themselves from education-management issues into structural educational problems. Not dealing timely with such issues can easily sabotage even the best designed and executed digital-transformation efforts.
What happened to (school) education since 2020 is extraordinary and the only way ahead for all participants in the education process from pupils and students to teachers, to parents, to other educators and relevant professionals and to the educational administration is to recognize that the period of sudden interruptions of classroom teaching accelerated a process of educational evolution and brought the (school) education to the point of (maybe otherwise a bit delayed but now inevitable) disruptive innovation. Right now it seems that the children are well ahead of the adults in realizing and coping with changes that promise to revolutionize the way (school) education takes place.
