Author - Peramaga Admin

Despite commendable efforts by many countries to put in place alternative remote learning strategies and corrective measures, learning losses have been unavoidable and substantial. Last year saw close to 1.6 billion students from over 180 countries being kept out of schools
for extended periods in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The UNESCO Institute for Statistics estimates that by early November 2020, the world student population had lost between 41% and 68% of in-person schooling they would have received under usual
circumstances.
In this second year of the pandemic, many countries are moving from emergency responses towards policies aimed at recovery. Along with reopening schools and resuming education, these include tailored support to help students adjust to learning in the new normal and remedial measures to make up for lost learning. Sri Lankan schools have been largely dysfunctional for over 15 months since initial closures in March 2020, despite some brief periods of operation. This blog examines policy responses adopted in Sri Lanka’s education sector over the past year, with a view of informing its future education recovery strategy in 2021 and beyond.

School closures in perspective
As of March 2021, Sri Lankan schools are estimated to have been fully closed for 28 weeks and partially closed for 15 weeks. As shown in the infographic (Figure 1), these numbers– especially of full closures – and as a result, the share of total school days missed are significantly higher compared to all country income group averages. These figures are
likely to increase further, given the current indefinite closures following the third wave of the pandemic.

Immediate response: Distance education
The government’s response to current school closures encourages schools to continue and expand online programmes, which have been in operation since last year. However, online learning platforms in Sri Lanka suffer from access and quality issues, also confirmed by
estimates of a recent survey conducted among public school teachers and parents across the country. As Figure 3 in the infographic shows, less than 50% of students were reached online on average; further, it ranged from a low of 8% in the smallest schools – which are typically the least privileged – to 59% in the largest. The survey also indicates that ducation via TV proved to be a better way of reaching students in smaller schools. However, several
pedagogical and logistical challenges have hindered effectiveness. These include lack of links between televised programmes and teachers’ lesson plans; a passive teaching style and absence of interaction with students; confusion of timing and duration of different subjects and TV channels; and poor communication of programme information to
schools, students, and parents.

Long-term response: Recovery strategies
The government’s strategy for recovering learning losses in the longer term also remains unspecified. Interviews conducted with sector stakeholders revealed that some privileged schools had initiated remedial measures at the school level, leveraging available resources
and support from community networks. These include: (1) assessing student learning via Google Form assessments and telephone follow-ups; (2) monitoring student progress on attendance, work submitted, and marks obtained for assessments; and (3) reducing curricula content to help students and teachers cope better. Apart from lower access to resources, centralized decision-making has made it difficult to implement similar school-level measures in less-privileged schools.

Areas for urgent action
The above discussion suggests that emergency and recovery measures adopted in Sri Lanka during COVID-19 school closures have worsened education inequities. To alleviate the current education crisis and commit to leaving no one behind, urgent action is needed in the following areas:

Reopen schools in low-risk areas
It is useful to consider opening schools in remote COVID-19 low-risk areas where distance learning is neither accessible nor effective, which usually have smaller student populations, allowing for better adherence to health guidelines such as physical distancing.

This can be done by allowing schools to make decisions in discussion with relevant school committees and regional education authorities, as opposed to blanket decisions made at the central level for all schools. Such plans should also involve strategies for more permanent ways of keeping schools open, supported by regular cost-effective testing of
both teachers and students and vaccinating teachers as a priority group.

Continue hybrid learning when schools reopen
The periodic interruptions to school reopening attempts underscore the need for a well-developed hybrid system for education delivery – consisting of a mix of in-person and remote options – so that teachers and students can shift smoothly to distance learning during an emergency. Even when schools are open, safety measures will not permit all students to attend school daily in highly-populated schools, necessitating blended learning to ensure uninterrupted learning. Recent research based on different country experiences shows that effective hybrid learning can be offered in any setting by identifying the best combination of education modalities, learning material, and methods of communication in line with available resources, skills, and technology.

Improve pedagogy for distance learning
Distance education is here to stay in some form or the other, at least in the foreseeable future. Ensuring effective remote pedagogy is particularly challenging for TV broadcasts instead of online teaching, where programme design has to ensure continuity in the face of the central teacher. Given that TV is the most feasible way of reaching less-privileged students in Sri Lanka, it is crucial to address existing pedagogical and logistical issues.
Reviewing measures taken in countries such as Pakistan and Vietnam to overcome similar challenges can be useful in this regard. These include:

• Leveraging school teachers, subject experts, and timetabling
  specialists to develop TV lessons aligned to the national curricula
• Organizing mass communication campaigns such as teaser
  videos and social media and newspaper advertising, leveraging
  public figures like politicians
• Maintaining communication between schools and parents by
  telephone, online teacher-parent meetings, and home visits for
  updates of learning progress.

- Hiyal Biyagamage

COVID-19, the current global pandemic that has created greater chaos, forces every individual and organisation to think out-of-the-box. When chaos is in the spotlight, two scenarios will be up for grabs: for those who can adapt as the opportunities will be countless, and for those who cannot, it could be a disaster. In such a context, businesses need to position their rationale to be on the front foot, prioritising ‘Digital Agility’ in this time of uncertainty. From new ways of working remotely to building detectors that identify people without masks, we are talking about a new cultural revolution that COVID-19 has brought forward. This revolution is significantly enabled by an outpour of creativity, which ushered in a new era of ‘digitally agile’ innovations. These new solutions are showcasing what human ingenuity is capable of in the face of adversity. Any period of volatility can create opportunities that businesses can leverage if they are prepared. In the case of the COVID-19 outbreak, organisations that take a more assertive and longer-term approach through IT agility can spark innovations. During the pandemic, companies have been creative in driving their organisations towards innovative thinking within their businesses; it also enforces the fact that organisations must be ready to present increasing digital capabilities and experiences for their customers to produce inspiring and digitally-agile innovative responses.

DIGITALLY-AGILE SOLUTIONS TO FIGHT THE PANDEMIC As a business that follows modern agile technology practices, Arimac Digital utilises digital service offerings and create solutions for different stakeholders—be it for citizens, governments or industries—to improve and augment their experience. We had the privilege to be a part of the government’s ongoing operations in their battle against COVID-19, offering our expertise on using smart innovations to help tackle this current challenge. The creativity and ingenuity we bring through agile digital operations helping local organisations and global private and public firms. All these projects were carried out free of charge to support individuals and companies to stand on their feet at this challenging time. Below are some of the critical projects we have been proud of spearheading as a team, during the last two months:

Developing a Contact Tracing App Taking proactive measures is the most vital component in our conquest to stop the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Together with the Presidential secretariat task force that was established to combat COVID–19, we developed “Together WeCan” app. The app is designed to identify both the proximity and the duration of the encounters with nearby users via Bluetooth Based Tracking.

Web Solutions that provide real-time information Our talented team has worked tirelessly with the Ministry of Health in Sri Lanka and the Health Promotion Bureau (HPB) to revamp their official website. We created a portal where individuals can get verified and accurate data, symptoms of COVID-19, hotlines for emergencies, prevention methods and FAQs on COVID-19. To add more value to the partnership with HBP, we created a public forum/community group through Viber to generate awareness on key safety measures and providing verified data on the situation of the virus. Furthermore, the studio division of Arimac created informative and fun-filled animations and posters to build COVID-19 awareness through an interactive learning process.

Open APIs playing a pivotal role Arimac identified the lack of a verified data source on the COVID-19 situation in Sri Lanka, and by collaborating with HPB, we created an API that is publicly open to developers with accurate LIVE data for any entity to extract the latest and accurate data. This is being used presently as Sri Lanka’s main source of information regarding the pandemic.

An all-new COVID-19 dashboard We have created a sophisticated dashboard to monitor the COVID-19 situation in the country. This dashboard comes with several features which allow the users to get live updates and analyse the situation.

Games to build awareness We have designed engaging games to attract the right target audience to spread awareness of this pandemic by utilising Facebook. Arimac is also currently creating an awareness-based game on COVID-19 for the World Health Organization (WHO), which will be made available through the social media channels of WHO.

Apart from these projects, we are also involved in discussions with Maldives, Algeria, Laos and Qatar to enable these countries with state-ofthe-art digital solutions to combat COVID-19 in their respective countries.

A NEW PATH FOR DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION COVID-19 is a dark cloud, but even within that obscurity, there is a bright, silver lining that is the spur of effort and spirit for digital innovations. With numerous digital developments taking place, many firms have become more conscious of the need for a strong case of digital transformation. When businesses start to recover from the aftermath of this pandemic slowly, business priorities will gradually shift, making a digital transformation a case of ‘when’, not ‘if’. When developing digital government strategies post COVID-19, the focus should be on improving data protection and digital inclusion policies as well as on solidifying the policy and technical capabilities of public institutions. Public-private partnerships will also be essential for implementing innovative technologies and tailoring digital solutions to countries’ needs. The COVID-19 pandemic has emphasised the importance of technology but also the pivotal role of an effective, inclusive and accountable government. At times of crisis, it is really important that private sector companies bring about innovations or integrate the already existing technology to make it more disruptive and convergent – not solely to capitalise on it, but to pay more attention on how it can benefit society. Agility, or the ability to respond promptly via technology, not only helps the country to be aware of the current situation but, in the future, will also be able to prevent an oncoming issue in the foreseeable future. To reemerge from the challenges and constraints imposed by COVID-19, organisations like Arimac will come forward on a much bigger scale to support the government in reviving the economy and rebuilding the society by sharing technologies, tools and  expertise. In the long term, the government would also need accelerate the implementation of innovative digital technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and Internet of Things (IoT). We have in-house experts on these technologies where we would like to engage with the government to create long-term roadmaps as these technologies can tremendously support the future resilience of Sri Lanka’s economy.