Near to 2 years into the COVID-19 pandemic, every other sector across the world has been badly impacted. The pandemic has made the people learn about every other way of dealing with their things. In similar to this, many sectors have searched out alternate ways of being consistent with their practices. However, the process of getting into trouble and facing the lockdown scenario, then coming up with different solutions, out of which a few worked out in favor. The entire process was quite time-taking which has badly impacted the lives of everyone in the world, from a person in business to a student, from a poor to rich, from an adult to an aged, etc.
With almost every country being affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, New Zealand was the first to recover before allowing the virus to spread and impact the entire country. Controlling Covid-19 was only possible with the strict rules set by prime minister Jacinda Ardern. As quoted by her, “ to go hard, go early” and “stay home, safe lives,” these two phenomena’s worked well in favor of the country.
After long and dark years of pandemic and strict lockdown, there was a ray of hope when the vaccination process started.
- Hope for living the normal life again
- Hope to go to work again
- Hope to attend normal classes again
- Hope to travel across the world again
Let’s discuss how Covid-19 impacted new Zealand’s education sector.
The Impact on Students
- The mental well-being was disturbed (Meo et al.)
- Students weren’t getting access to the excessive resources provided at the campus.
- Students were not able to understand the taught concept clearly.
- Lack of interest due to no proper rules and regulations when attending classes online
- Poor writing skills because of less subject knowledge also made students buy assignments online to maintain their grades.
- No co-curricular activity as a refresher to freshen up the young minds.
- International students who have applied for a student visa for New Zealand were stuck in the mid-way.
The Impact on Teachers
- It was becoming challenging for the teachers to manage the workload.
- Teachers were under work stress that made them less productive when teaching.
- New teachers were struggling the most to adapt to the instant change in teaching medium.
- Burnished with a lot of responsibilities to make online teaching exciting and fruitful.
- Teachers were at high risk of losing their jobs.
What schools around the world were planning to incorporate
Similar to the problems mentioned above that have been impacting the education sector of New Zealand. Every other country was going through similar problems like these. These problems created much trouble for the education sector. Many schools and universities drafted out a few ideas for maintaining the quality of education during the pandemic.
- New teaching techniques
- Feasible and flexible timings
- Sending out valuable resources to the students
- Recorded online classes
- Extended deadlines to release student’s stress
- Postponed the exam and emphasized more on the conceptual understanding
How the heads of the education sector in New Zealand fight back the impacts of covid-19
New Zealand came up with a new terminology named “Te Rito Toi,” which means “A caring response to Pandemic.” (O’Connor, P., & Estellés, M 2021). The higher authorities of ew Zealnthough of focusing on the wellbeing o the students a first because one cannot achieve set goals until they are in the pink of their health.
What is Te Rito Toi?
Te Rito Toi is actually and an educational resource based on arts. The resource “Te Rito Toi” was introduced in 2020 when the strick Covid-lockdown was being practiced in New Zealand. The resource was designed to support teachers and heads after the reopening of school.
Why was it important?
It was imperative to find a way to help students get engaged and come back to life after traumatic years of crisis. Students were soo demotivated, and their skills were getting rusted; it was witnessed the majority of them called for “Write My assignment” as they were not even willing to work on their academic assignments while sitting at home.
Every school project is exciting and motivating when it is done with a group discussion and involvement; this teamwork was missing when studying online, which made the level of motivation for students go down.
International Students in New Zealand
However, right after the traumatic phase New Zealand has now entered into the recovery phase. The recovery phase is a speedy one, because of which the Govt in New Zealand is now planning to open the borders for the international students who were in the mid-way of their student visa process and the ones who were traveling to their respective countries and got stuck there because of the closure of borders.
As the vaccination process is rolling out, completely vaccinated candidates can travel to New Zealand to get started with their studies soon. New Zealand is also giving out scholarship offers to the international students enrolled for the foundation studies certificate online in 2022.
Exchange program
Moreover, New Zealand is not entertaining on-campus exchange progress for 2022, but the virtual exchange program will continue.
However, the schools worldwide have appreciated their communities for coming together to help the downfall of the education sector due to the strict lockdown imposed. Moreover, the parents, the teacher, and the students have put in an extra hand to recover all the losses caused by the pandemic.
As quoted by Victor Hugo, “Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise” this proves that no matter how complex our situation is, then things will get sorted with the pace of time.
References
O’Connor, P., & Estellés, M. (2021). Te Rito Toi in New Zealand: A Caring Response to the Pandemic. In Frontiers in Education (p. 390). Frontiers.
Meo, S. A., Abukhalaf, A. A., Alomar, A. A., Sattar, K., & Klonoff, D. C. (2020). COVID-19 pandemic: impact of quarantine on medical students’ mental wellbeing and learning behaviors. Pakistan journal of medical sciences, 36(COVID19-S4), S43.