Abstract:

Philosophers name certain big challenges of COVID-19: G. Agamben claims that we are facing the normalizion of the emergent. A. Badiou sees the coronacrisis as a threat to the rationality of modernity. Y. Harari says we are simultaneously facing the problems of expanding and sharply restricting rights, freedoms and opportunities.

The coronocrisis deepened some of the fears on distance education. T. Oppenheimer’s claims in “The Flickering Mind” that the alliance between education policymakers and billionaire technologists could undermine the role of teachers and the public sphere become relevant.

One of the central issues of the discussion is whether online education creates equal opportunities, or vice versa. D. Deming warns on-campus learning may eventually become unaffordable for all but the wealthiest institutions and families. Russian political scientist E. Schulmann believes that the development of online technologies will lead to the parallel processes of egalitarianization and segregation.

Overall, the Russian education system adapted quickly to the new conditions. Of course, the situation differed, firstly, in secondary and higher education, and secondly, in large cities of the European part of Russia and in more remote regions. In this sense, the availability of devices for accessing the Internet and the presence of high-speed Internet connection in households were the key factors.

At the end of March, the parents of Russian school students had to write applications of “free attendance”, in fact – a transfer to distant learning.
Russian schools worked on both international platforms and Russian online interactive platforms such as Uchi.ru, YaKlass, Yandex.Uchebnik, Open School, Russian Electronic School. My School Online TV channel was launched with video lessons on the main subjects to compensate for the inequality of access to education via Internet.

In higher education, the process of transition to distance learning was smoother as all universities are required by federal agencies to create an electronic informational and educational environment. Thus, the universities already had a functioning electronic environment when the pandemic began.

As shown by a recent survey by RANEPA Laboratory for Social Research Methodology, the lecturers in Russia are technically ready to switch to distance learning. However, there is a great degree of internal, latent rejection of distance education in all areas, regardless of gender, age, the social and professional status of the lecturer. The sharp transition to distance education, destroying the usual lifestyle and the daily routine, where work and rest are distributed in time and space, led to stress and, as a result, rejection of distance education by around 66% of the lecturers.

Online learning proved to be effective under social distance requirements. However, under normal conditions, its negative effects, primarily associated with emotional and psychological stress, surpass its positive effects. In addition, online education often only creates a false impression of equal access to quality education. Russian academia has a consensus on this issue, but education managers may still not consider this opinion and may opt for transition to online education formats to reduce costs in the context of the current economic crisis.

Keywords:

Russian education, higher education, distance learning, equality, COVID-19.