Heaptalk, Jakarta – The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide have affected drastic changes in education. The causes also due to the government policy to limit the space for people to move, including school-age children make them have to adapt to new learning patterns.
They began to get used to attending class online, which relies heavily on technology devices. Finally, due to this compulsion, many people predict that this generation of “learning online” will produce new talents in the future that can spur the development of human beings’ technology.
Apart from the dismissal of many stakeholders where it is necessary to take place out of the blue, education is facing technological enhancements — It has facilitated many conveniences. Although, it’s there is still some lack of preparation of the existing infrastructure in Indonesia. This writing is summarizing the point of view of Benny D Setianto, an academic Lecturer at Unika Soegijapranata, Semarang, that shares another side of the inevitability of this online learning.
The Changing of Business Model
Borrowing the meaning of the Industrial Revolution 4.0, what happened was not just embedding information technology, big data, and artificial intelligence into the business world. However, it is more like a fundamental change in the industrial model itself. The production acceleration movement, which marked the 1.0 industrial revolution, has evolved in such a way.
So, how much, when to produce, and when to send it to consumers is no longer controlled by humans. However, it has been left up to the artificial intelligence mechanism. The business model for building large-scale infrastructure independently has been changed to the crowdsourcing model (left to the availability mechanism from various sources), which only needs to be networked.
Each source will seek guidance from its artificial intelligence to work together to create and fulfill needs in an efficient and timely manner. The business model changed entirely because of it and changed rapidly.
Education 4.0
Even though it is not part of the industry in the sense that it has the primary motive for increasing profits, education must more or less be able to keep up with changes in business models that occur in the industrial world.
The application of the Indonesian National Qualifications Framework (KKNI), which encourages universities to connect themselves with the needs of the industrial world increasingly, is an example of necessity that education cannot be guaranteed by the industrial revolution that occurs.
Apart from adapting the curriculum to the IQF standards, universities have not moved from a comfortable world to become institutions that are still running their business as usual (business as usual). Many reasons reflect the fear of dealing with changing educational models, especially over information technology’s infiltration. Face-to-face meetings are a must for transferring values to students and not just knowledge; those are some realities that happened.
In fact, there are many complaints about empty classes because the lecturers are more often involved in research activities or become resource persons outside the campus. Not to mention that the lecturers cannot keep up with the speed of information technology itself. It was coupled with a reluctance to develop themselves. So, they still position themselves as the correct source of knowledge in the class they are teaching.
As a result, students become memorized magic sentences that they must replicate exactly on the exam answer sheets.
Accelerated education due to covid-19?
Then, is the compulsion that occurred due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which eliminated face to face in classrooms, able to be an accelerator of education 4.0?
The question must be answered by reflecting on what happened in the last one or two months. There are two main elements when the general education model is to be implemented. The first is related to the content and the essentials. Second, it relates to how the learning methods will convey the content to students. The combination of the two will determine what pedagogy to apply. Educators who still rely on the same content obtained when they became students themselves will undoubtedly have a tough time carrying out the current education process, especially during the Covid-19 period.
Students’ freedom to search for newer information sources by utilizing the internet network will make the teaching staff lose their position as the center of attention, especially the center of knowledge. When the process is carried out independently at home, such education personnel’s prestige will increasingly lose.
The one-way monologue method is commonly used as a method known to educators in conveying their knowledge. And, even anger, if not paid attention, will lose its compressive power when the learning process is no longer isolated in the same room. As a result, many teachers ask students to study independently by being given an extraordinary (quantitative) task load.
Or, qualitatively, even the educators do not necessarily know the detailed answer. The final note of Covid-19 has indeed forced the world of education to use communication with existing information technology. However, what happens a lot, new educators try to move the classroom in the room into virtual spaces without changing the existing pedagogy.
Consequently, students’ pressure when they are in the same room divider as the teacher/lecturer, no more extended functions. * Likewise, the center of attention of the education personnel in the class divider also loses its strength. What happened during the Covid-19 pandemic has not prompted a change in the education business model.
However, simply transferring events in an insulated classroom into a virtual space. As a result, accelerating education 4.0 is just looking at it from the classroom window. And they have not found a change in their pedagogical model that is in line with changes in the industry. The Covid-19 pandemic has only brought down the walls of class but has not brought down the braincase with the old industrial mindset. (FK)
