Using information technology has become part and parcel of how modern societies operate. Long gone are the days when acquiring computer skills was reserved for the lucky few, mostly limited to academic and scientific domains.

Decades later, even if a person fulfills his or her job-related tasks without the need for a keyboard, it is almost certain that once back home a laptop, desktop or at least an internet-enabled smartphone awaits its owner, fully charged on the living room table. Turkish citizens, in particular, like to be connected. It is not uncommon that a grandmother communicates with her grandchildren via social media and hence, age no longer truly matters. But this was before the coronavirus pandemic struck.

Now analysts are not so certain anymore about the benefits of embarking on the path of a world completely computerized for work and study. At stake – homeschooling, otherwise known as distance learning. In a snapshot view from debates in a number of countries, including Austria, Germany and the United Kingdom, no state has on-location insight from A to Z yet.

Justified concerns

Granted, as it became clear that the rate of COVID-19 infections almost everywhere on our shared planet would continue to go up, it was a wise decision to try and limit face-to-face contacts and large indoor gatherings with even smaller get-togethers in confined spaces seen as a high-risk activity.

Hence, most countries opted for closing down their educational establishments at least for a number of months. Now as the summer recess nears its end, governments are hard-pressed to find solutions for how to reopen schools and universities.

Let us assume for the sake of clarity that discussing the merits of distance education for adults would require a separate article. We shall limit our examination of the pros and cons of distance learning to schoolchildren of all ages.,

At the beginning of school closures in many European countries around early to mid-March, there was excitement in the air. Kids most definitely liked the idea of spending time at home, hoping for a more relaxed studying environment and enjoying limitless hours with siblings and parents. Yet soon families, and of course teachers, realized that what started as a seemingly "cool" undertaking soon turned sour, for how would online classes actually be arranged?

Let us assume that most children have access to a laptop or desktop in one way or another, although there had been many reported cases where this assumption does not work out, particularly if one or both parents had to swap commuting to work with the newly dictated home office too, thus creating enormous competition for who could actually use the internet.

Plus, what transpired over time was something else as distance learning, even through a daily Zoom (or other media tool) class, reduced interaction between pupil and educator to almost zero. Sending emails became the only option to ask specific questions, and let us be honest, parents were almost completely left in the dark about the progress of their youngsters unless daily evaluations, or at least weekly scoreboards, were sent out to the whole class, which apparently they were not, at least not everywhere.

The obvious benefit of allowing at least some access to study materials and marking homework during a pandemic while the rest of society is in lockdown is certainly laudable. Yet, on one hand, many governments left schools in a state of irritation for how to manage non-classroom based teaching, while on the other, many instititions, in turn, left individual teachers to their own devices without clear guidelines.

How many online lessons per week, how much homework per day, how many oral tests if any and above all else, how to come up with a fair grade at the end of the term or throw them out when worried parents complain to their respective headmasters?

Best in class

Not necessarily. Adjusting to distance learning, and in particular, creating the initiative to engage in extra studies, was difficult to put it mildly. Even a child otherwise obtaining the best mark in a specific subject based on printed handouts and a textbook needed to learn new skills and often search the internet for background documents without any further advice from school, then write it all up in Word format or design a PowerPoint presentation, more often than not for the first time in their young lives.

Of course learning these IT skills, albeit sooner than expected, has advantages, but what if a student simply needs extra support from the teacher and from interacting during class? What if that same student also benefited from after-class contact with his or her teacher, as well as with two or more pupils doing homework together to help each other?

Hence there is no general rule that a good student gets better putting to use newly acquired skills. What became apparent, however, is the opposite. Children who needed more support during and after class often felt even more stressed out, and should distance learning efforts be graded, which they surprisingly were not in a number of reported instances, they would receive even worse marks than during "normal" school time.

No matter what?

Reading between the lines of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s recent comments, it is absolutely vital that the United Kingdom "goes back to school" instead of pondering thoughts about further educational lockdowns. Many analysts agree, warning about a lost generation education-wise, noting that it is better to close a restaurant if needed rather than a school.

It is a positive development that puts the right to education over maximizing profit.

But what about the students themselves, what about the parents and what about the teachers? From what one hears and what is reported in the local media and regardless of whether a student is good or average, it seems young people are eager, ready and happy to return to class.

Parents, after first checking safety and hygiene measures at their local schools, in particular, if they suffered from being forced to work reduced hours or work from home, would prefer to be able to re-enter the labor force as before knowing that for the best part of a weekday, their children are taken care of in an educational establishment.

And what about our teachers? Although they themselves had to learn how to manage a classroom remotely, it appears that a vast majority would prefer the old normal becoming the new normal as long as it is paired with social distancing, COVID-19 hygiene measures and perhaps even contact tracing rigorously adhered to. It is fair to say that older teachers are more at risk than younger colleagues of catching the virus before a vaccine hopefully becomes available early 2021, and trade unions and teacher representatives have strongly made their case in this regard, expecting a safe and secure teaching environment for everyone, not just the children.

In summary, is distance learning for schoolchildren advantageous or not? Probably not despite the fact that health ministers justifiably, as it was completely new policymaking territory, decided to temporarily implement it. It should always remain the absolute exception, however, and not become part of the "new normal."

* Political analyst, journalist based in London