Chapter 1: Could the energy crisis lead to a return to remote learning?
Could the energy crisis mean a return to remote learning?
It's enough to strike fear into the hearts of parents. But one person who believes we should be having this conversation now is Dr. Paul Davis, who's a lecturer in public procurement at DCU. Good morning, Paul.
Good morning, Clare.
Now, many of us remember the difficulty of remote learning when we had to do it during the pandemic. But do you think we could be heading back there in part at least, or should be?
I think we should be thinking about it and we should be planning. This is the time to consider what are the best options coming into winter. We had the experience of COVID. It arrived in and immediately every educational institute responded really well with online learning. with supports put in place, but it was rushed. It was often people struggling to try to figure out what best to do.
Here we know we more than likely may have an energy crisis coming in. And when we look at the financial costs to most education buildings, it's energy intensive. Now, primary education, I think I said in the article today was, look, it's critical that that remains open. Any move from physical presence, I think is both educationally and socially regressive.
Secondary education offers opportunities because there are years, maybe second year, whereby we could go online and we stop the ability. Well, we're not stopped, but we actually look at cohorts going through and think about how to reduce their time in class. And again, there's an energy cost to this.
There is the transport, there's the commute, but there's also the energy cost of having the classrooms open when maybe we don't need to. But it's at third level. Go ahead.
Third level is where, and I know when you're writing about this in the Irish Times, third level is where you really say that this should happen. And we'll talk about the reasons why and the savings that could be made in a moment. But one of the sort of earliest verdicts from the pandemic, what went right and what went wrong, was around education, wasn't it?
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Chapter 2: What lessons did we learn from remote learning during the pandemic?
in what you're saying today to primary but the damage that was done by having remote learning went beyond primary school didn't it?
It did and it went into secondary and we're seeing the effects of it now in third level as well but this is where we have to consider cohorts who they are and plan for them rather than suddenly having an ad hoc arrangement hit us in September October where suddenly we may be facing a crisis, but energy costs may still be increasing.
And again, these are all maybes, but we can plan for that now and then choose how we actually carry out our education system in advance, rather than waiting to react in like we did with COVID. We've got a lot of lessons that we learned in COVID, and a lot of them were positive in terms of the ability of teachers and lecturers to be able to deliver online.
At very short notice, but who actually thought about what to do. But we do have to look at the socialisation aspects of it and ensure that the right cohorts are getting socialised rather than then making this large blanket agreement. Suddenly we can't do this because the energy costs are too high.
And I'd hate to see that happen because that's the wrong approach to this when we can actually plan for it.
So let's talk about how it might work at third level. Like you say, some of the lectures that are delivered when you're just sitting there listening and taking notes could very easily be done at home.
But then we hear about the missed social opportunities around people staying away from college, whether that's because they can't get accommodation or when it comes to energy costs, they might be facing a long commute. So we know that those problems exist as it is. I mean, how do you mitigate against that if you follow through on this plan?
Well, what you do is you choose the days that you want people in, you choose the cohorts that you want in, and you make sure that you balance it out. I said it very clearly that you've got to look at the type of classes that you're actually giving.
So a more considered model, I pointed out, will combine that asynchronous online learning with targeted in-person engagements, such as seminars, workshops. So you're only bringing them up for one day a week, rather than spreading lectures out over three, four days, whereby they're in class. It's thinking creatively.
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Chapter 3: How can energy costs impact the education system?
And I'd rather plan for my education rather than arrive at it by default.
Okay, so why are the postgrad numbers declining?
We relied, like the UK did, and like a lot of countries, on two cohorts, Chinese and Indian. And with the Middle East setting, it's actually started to bring down the level of people that want to travel at this stage. There's a fear of moving away. And that's a big impact on us at this point.
So let's look at the savings that you think could be made if you have some students remote learning, particularly a third level, you could shut down blocks, not heat them, not light them and cut your energy bills. Is that what you're suggesting?
It's significant, yeah. And you're also not just saving on that. You're giving some foresight to the students who would be coming on campus, maybe arriving up. And we've heard this over the last few weeks of students talking about how they can't get accommodation, some of them sleeping in cars, some of them not turning up to lectures because they can't actually get here.
So what you're doing is you're actually giving some stability for students to be able to plan how they're going to do it so they can stay at home, they can do their lectures, they can attend lectures. But we're not involved in this rush to get accommodation that the students are giving out about. It's trying to find a balance in there for everybody, but we need to plan it.
Yeah, I mean, this is going to solve a problem potentially for those institutions, but it might create a problem for the homeowners who are getting in touch this morning who are saying that hundreds of people heating and lighting their homes. How is that more energy efficient than doing the same in a single large building?
The difference is that a single large building is very much underutilised. A single home, look, and I have to be very careful of being facetious, but having grown up in the 70s, an extra jumper always seemed to work for me as a student. Now that seems very facetious, but I don't want to be.
But you can wear the extra jumper in the lecture hall.
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Chapter 4: What are the implications of shifting to online learning at different education levels?
We can plan for this. We did extremely well with COVID, but we reacted in. This is not about a reaction. This is about planning our education systems.
But why aren't you, Paul, calling for more funding from the government to bridge the gap?
Well, here's the catch. The government has already paid Ā£550 million out in funding in terms of short-term funding for fuel. We know that they're hoping that this will all be resolved, but we know that there's an impact on cost of fuel that's going to continue over probably the next five to six weeks at least. That may continue long-term into the winter.
In which case, any surplus the budget has is probably going to be diverted, trying to just maintain in terms of the general population. When it gets down to education, you can change business model overnight, but you can start adapting the business model to cater for different circumstances. So I don't think you can call for more funding.
I think you have to get better management of the funding that's available for the universities, for all education systems, and think about how we do it better. And doing it better, by the way, is not saying that online is cheaper. It's just saying that you're shifting the way you do your learning to something different. But it will reduce costs down.
You know, it's a conversation that nobody wants to have.
No, I see that from the messages coming in this morning as we're chatting. I mean, are you suggesting that this would be a short term measure or does it change the model of how education is delivered at second and third level?
I think we have to look at education as we go forward, particularly with the use of technology. I think that the education model has not shifted enough in the adaption of online learning. We do know it works. We do know it is actually very critical in terms of supporting students.
A lot of the third level for institutions are using online models in terms of online material to support students anyway. So moving a lecture online from a classroom base is not a significant change. At second level, it's about planning delivery, but we are already seeing students who do grinds through online systems. So we know the online is part of the mix that we have.
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