Page 5 - STUDENT GUIDE IBAMTAL

GUIDE FOR VOCATIONAL AND TECHNICAL SCHOOL STUDENTS

1) BENEFITS AND THE ADVANTAGES OF ONLINE EDUCATION

The whole world has met with distance education/online education with the onset of COVID-
19 epidemic at the end of 2019. Many countries had to suspend face-to-face education and

switched to online education to prevent the spread of the virus. According to the United

Nations data, a learning audience of 770 million people in the world was affected by the
interruption of face-to-face education.

In addition to all the measures taken to prevent contagion by creating social distance during
the COVID-19 epidemic, the best practice to provide contagion in the field of education was

regarded to be distance education/online education, especially in the countries with a high
viral distribution and hence, online education turned into the most preferred education channel

by administrators and experts in education.

The 2020 COVID-19 report prepared by Harvard University and the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) underlined the fact that it is a must for

educators to develop options for the continuation of education during periods when social
distancing is mandatory.

With the pandemic, most of the countries in the world had to take urgent measures especially

in the field of education. For example, with the onset of the COVID-19 epidemic, schools
were closed in England as a precaution until a second warning and exams were cancelled.

Although such measures were not sufficient on their own, the implementation of these
measures was deemed urgent due to the necessity to act carefully against the pandemic to

diminish the effect of the pandemic on the teachers and students.

Hence, many countries in Europe took a break from education as of March 16, 2020, while
countries such as Sweden and Iceland preferred to keep schools open by taking serious social

distance and health compliance measures at all education levels except high schools and
universities. The opening of schools was postponed, and distance/online education practices

were started in a synchronous or asynchronous manner against the danger of the virus
spreading rapidly in many parts of the world.

Distance/online education practices were implemented fairly rapidly since there has been an

extensive digital transformation in the world during the last 20 years and information and
communication technologies have already been used in educational institutions, both

academically and administratively.

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