Top priority things that parents expect from schools | Eloit

23-Apr-2021, 11:04:42 PM
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Eloit

COVID-19 pandemic has shaken the entire world. Every industry has taken a heavy blow as people had to stay indoors during lockdowns. When most of us were adjusting to the new normal of work from home, many students woke up to the era of online education. Schools all over the world started utilizing school management software at its full potential to propel education to every student.

In such difficult times, parent's expectations from schools changed significantly. Similarly, school administration dwindled between managing education online and meeting up with high-quality standards at the same time. One common thing on both sides is the challenge to accept and embrace online education. It can not replace the physical benefits of school but is the need of the hour for making progress possible in these challenging times.

The School And Education Landscape in 2021

Due to the pandemic, over 1.2 billion children did not get any education due to shutting down schools. And hence, online education has garnered popularity. Even before COVID-19 surge, advanced school management software enabled with AI were in demand. The pandemic made the process faster. It is estimated that the online education industry will reach over $350 billion by 2025. This was when there was no COVID-19 scenario. Hence, pre-pandemic education was a heterogeneous mix of both traditional methodology and technology with more focus on the former.

Post-pandemic, there is a considerable disparity between children availing of education. For instance, 95% of children from high socio-economic backgrounds instantly switched to online education due to the availability of smartphones and computers. In contrast, many from lower strata of society had to drop out due to poverty to sustain themselves. Nevertheless, several merits of online education emerged. For instance, the cost of education went down due to a reduction in traveling costs, material cost, etc. Additionally, it has been found that students retain 40% more than the traditional setup in an online classroom.

Let us discuss how the current situation has impacted the parents of the children. 

Impact Of The Pandemic On The Parents Of School-Going Children

Parents have been highly impacted by the lockdown with most needing to juggle not only between their jobs and personal lives but also keep an eye on the online classes of their children. Many reported adverse effects on their children and themselves due to poor quality and limited support from schools. In addition to this primary responsibility of education came onto parents with little interaction with teachers. Due to blurring lines between personal and professional life, many parents complained of undue stress and worry about their children's future. Many of these issues with online classes and lack of communication can be mitigated with the help of robust school management software like Edisapp by Eloit.

Additionally, parents had to focus more on keeping a pleasant environment at home in times of conflict. As an individual, it can get difficult to be strong at all times, even if you are a parent. Many of them have expressed mental health concerns and growing anxiety in themselves and their kids due to the uncertainty that prevails in the current situation. Above all, parents are concerned about the fast-changing world and the rising health care cost that can affect their children's plans.

Given all the concerns, parents now have some genuine expectations apart from the ones that were prevalent in the pre-covid era. Let us discuss some of them in the next section. 

Top 11 Priority Things Parents Expect From Schools Now

Be it pandemic or ordinary life; parents toil hard to educate their children through the best resources. It is genuine for parents to want superior quality education for their kids to have a bright future. However, COVID-19 has reshaped the entire education system. The question remains, now what do parents expect from schools?

Safety

Parents want the best health for their children, and hence, many of them are strictly against reopening schools until it is safe to step out and the doom of COVID-19 is over. Now, even under-stress parents want homeschooling to continue. To empathize with the concerns of the parents and provide a quality educational experience, schools employ advanced learning management systems for the students to keep learning from home without any hassle or safety issues.

High Teaching Quality

Regardless of the outer environment, the teaching quality is expected to remain high at all times. Parents wish for generous and competent teachers who are well versed in their subject and can impart the knowledge in an engaging and innovative manner. But given the current situation, teachers’ mental health has also been impacted and it might sometimes be difficult to meet those expectations due to various logistical reasons like lack of proper medium or lack of a systematic way to impart lessons in a remote environment. This is where the role of robust school management software comes in to help solve these kinds of additional challenges.

Advanced Technology

The pandemic has pushed the requirement of online education without much preparation. But if it is here to stay, parents expect cutting-edge school management software that caters to the educational needs and extracurricular activities of the children.

Updated Curriculum

Unlike the previous generation, parents nowadays are heavily invested in knowing what their kid is learning in the classroom. As the competition is rising across various fields, parents want a curriculum that is updated, practical and valuable to their kids in the future. It is highly advisable for schools to keep themselves updated not just in terms of the curriculum but also in terms of technology and idealogy.

Interactive Learning

Due to the pandemic, the interaction between teachers and students has become quite limited. To get the most out of online education, parents want schools to focus on more interaction and intuitive learning to better engage and retain the study material. This can be achieved with school management systems like Eloit where bridging the gap between parent-teacher communication has been determined as a priority. 

Affordability

Parents are ready to shell out reasonable money for the best education. But with the economy sliding down and salaries being cut, parents expect a bit of leniency in the school fee. It may not be highly unreasonable, but it is genuine seeing the turnout of the pandemic. Schools can combat this need by cutting on other costs like maintenance costs, municipality costs now. Streamlining administrative processes with the help of school management software can help reduce duplication of activities leading to a reduction in costs. 

Sports Education

Nowadays, parents expect schools to pay individual attention to a kid's health and fitness. It is a known fact that sports are highly competitive and a very biased structure in our education system. But wide-range sports inclusion is beneficial for the vast majority of children. Although this expectation can be a little unrealistic now with everyone at home, teachers can still encourage students remotely to perform certain sports or physical activities daily at their homes. 

Extracurricular Activities

Extracurricular activities are linked with better mental health, confidence, and cognitive skills. Therefore, parents put more significance on their kids' participation in today's time. Also, these bring out the inert capabilities and hidden talents. Parents can take advantage of the children staying at home and involve themselves also in the extracurricular activities with their children like arts and crafts, playing board games, etc. A school’s or teacher’s role here is to encourage the parents to spend more time with their children in a productive way as they are all at home.

Modern Library 

Gone are the days when a parent's ultimate wish was a sound library with a massive collection of books. As online education is taking its shape, parents want libraries to come over online platforms for holistic and easy research purposes. 

Parent's Involvement

To facilitate the overall development of a child, the active involvement of parents is necessary. Parents want to know their child's progress, meet the teachers, and interact with them these days. Hence, schools must get innovative to induce more involvement of parents. With parents’ busy schedules and the recent situation of maintaining distance, school software comes as a relief as they facilitate immersive communication among all the parties involved.

School's Reputation

A school with a good reputation is highly unlikely to have a low success rate in development and education. Hence, this is of great importance to parents as they equate admission into a great school with a bright future. To add to the reputation ecosystem, nowadays schools with learning management systems are highly preferred by parents. 

Conclusion

The pandemic may have been harsh on both parents and children. But schools are leaving no stone unturned for making online education interactive, wholesome and qualitative. With advanced school management software such as Edisapp by Eliot, schools are gearing up for AI-powered education. Hence, the new normal for education has just begun and is set for tremendous success and involvement of children. Contact us if you are interested in getting the most advanced management software for your school

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