How the COVID-19 pandemic transformed education in the best universities in the world

Modern education is a unique phenomenon with no precedent as experts of RBC Trends concluded during their study.

The implementation of online learning technologies has costed universities much more than classical teaching methods. Also, according to surveys, many students rate the quality of online education lower than offline, due to the lack of networking and personal involvement in the learning process.

Nevertheless, the demand for higher education has only increased. According to CNBC statistics, the number of applications for admission to Harvard increased by 57% in 2020, and to Yale - by 38%.

At the same time, many students take a year off from their studies right after their admission, so they could wait out the pandemic and resume studying when everything returns to normal. UK universities noticed a similar trend.

In 2021, the UK also plans to abolish standard final exams. Instead, and as it was last year, teachers will grade based on students' performance. On average, students got higher grades than they did for traditional exams.

Schools, camps, and foreign language courses that usually have international students for 1 to 3 months, mostly in summer, were the most affected by the pandemic. The decrease in demand for them was due to lockdowns, complications with air travel, and the problem of getting visas.

Also, students still find it challenging to adapt to the new learning environment - after all, you must have appropriate software and a high-speed Internet connection for effective learning. Still, online learning has expanded educational opportunities for students from other countries and remote regions. Now that many subjects were modified for video lessons through Zoom, Skype, or Teams, learning has become way more flexible and accessible.

The pandemic has also opened up a new direction for world universities - educational platforms. Many of them already launched their distance courses at Coursera, FutureLearn, LinkedIn Learning, etc., where you can learn from prominent professors from around the world and even get a degree in science.