UN 75 Dialogue: Future of Online Education in Afghanistan

To mark its 75th anniversary in 2020, the United Nations has launched a global conversation on how to tackle the challenges we face and build a better future for all. In January, Secretary-General António Guterres launched the world’s biggest conversation on building a better future for all. The vision was to spark conversations (“UN75 dialogues”) in all settings – from classrooms to

boardrooms, parliaments to village halls – on priorities for the future, obstacles to achieving them, and the role of international

cooperation in making progress.

Given the present situation, the Covid-19 pandemic and the resultant lockdown has made a necessity of online education. Most institutions are shifting to online classes in order to complete ongoing courses of study. However, there have been previous attempts to utilize modern technology to facilitate access to education as well. MOOCs, or Massively Open Online Courses, have been one such attempt. Such courses helped expose many of the challenges and issues associated with online education. The first and most debilitating problem, of course, is the absence of proper infrastructure and access to the Internet.

In order to understand the future of online education in Afghanistan, it is necessary to discuss the utility of online formats, challenges, scope for improvement and the importance of innovation to tackle adaptation and other related issues.

Some of the issues we will be discussing include:

• Technical difficulties and computer literacy
• Student participation - active versus passive involvement
• Motivation and attitudes towards online learning
• Effective communication strategies
• Infrastructure related issues
• Online versus offline education - comparing pros and cons
• Adaptation to new format of teaching
  • Areas that teachers need to work on
  • Areas that students need to work on