Abstract:

Digital transformation induced by the COVID19 situation, has made tertiary education more accessible in the past couple of years. The most immediate example to substantiate this hypothesis would be edX offering free online courses from Harvard and MIT to those who want to upskill professionally or even want a bite-size taste of an unexplored area of study to decide on their career pathway. To facilitate this delivery, several hosting platforms are used for learners at different levels. At the tertiary level, Zoom appears to be the primary platform; while for corporate training, it is mainly MS Teams. For the purpose of research, in this paper, corporate training will also be considered a form of tertiary education.

This paper aims to explore if COVID19 has made tertiary education more accessible to learners, furthering ‘the democracy of education’? A three-pronged study of secondary data was conducted on relevant websites and annual reports of education providers, delivery platforms and the learners’ enrolment numbers during the pandemic. Preliminary findings show that education delivery using digital platforms has become agile since the pandemic - switching between online, offline and hybrid modes. This has facilitated the promotion of micro-credentials, a concept that became popular in the years preceding the pandemic. IT-related programmes have gained in popularity, with the government in countries like New Zealand giving incentives to education providers and learners to pursue computer-aided digital skills. Harvard and other ivy league institutions, which were considered a ‘class apart’, have become more accessible with their distance delivery of short programmes.

While the digital divide continues to leave behind a certain segment of our society from jumping on to this bandwagon of change, softwares and digital platforms facilitating access for those on the privileged-side of the divide have boosted the political economy, thus furthering the divide in favour of the digital natives. innovation in knowledge delivery, on the other hand, is rapidly transforming the education industry.

Keywords:

Digital transformation, innovation, education and democracy, enterprise, political economy, free online courses, Harvard online, Zoom, tertiary education.