The Great Education Disaggregation

 There is something very interesting happening in the education sector. It has been occasioned by the pandemic, yes, but it is happening at warp speed. It will upend a sector and an industry that had not changed much in more than a century. These are changes brought about by a combination of the pandemic, technology, the level of exposure that people (especially children) have nowadays, and the needs of a rapidly changing world.

I begin with a disclaimer. Much of what I will discuss is from a private school perspective in Kenya, but much of it will also apply to public schools, and outside of our borders. 

When the pandemic hit, there was a lot of change in how education was proposed to be delivered. Many rapidly shifted to online modes of instruction. At the same time, there was a crisis of what to do with the fate of teachers and other staff in the school. There was also the question of the other costs associated with running schools, whether rent, the cost of school buses, and the like. 

In some ways many of these were emergency efforts - changes brought about by the sudden onset of a pandemic the likes of which none of us had ever had to deal with. Policymakers were making decisions on the fly. Fee payers and school owners were having to pivot almost on a ndururu, with the needs of their children, the financial situation, and managing a public health crisis all coming into play. Caught up in all this, of course, were the pupils and students (I hate that Seffriken term ‘learners’, by the way). Yanked out of the classroom in an instant, having to deal with the fear of a deadly disease, having to watch their elders grapple with a health crisis while still trying to keep a semblance of equilibrium, and watch other elements of life get upended. 

When classes resumed online around May and June, new considerations came into play. From a financial point of view, the fee-payers (for ease of conversation, 'parents') had to spend quite a bit to get their children online. Whether it was the cost of devices, or the cost of bandwidth, or the cost of upgrading connectivity, the fact is that parents spent quite a bundle.

Additionally, there was a lot of empathy towards schools and their dire straits, especially in terms of maintaining the livelihoods of workers. There are some schools where the parents’ community got together and raised money that went directly to supplement the income of teachers and non-teaching staff. It was understood that this was not fees per se, but simply an emergency social pot that was being put together and tapped for a specific set of circumstances. 

Many of these emergency steps were when this was all new and shocking. But shock, even a world-changing shock, quickly ends. No one seemed to have thought through what happens after the pandemic has been with us for a year or longer. 

So, let’s look at where we had been. We agree that it education not a product like any other, a fact some institutions had taken advantage of. They were relying on multiple factors:

1. The cost of change is pretty high - many people don't want to move children from one school to the other in search of cheaper fees. The choice of a school is pretty 'sticky'.

2. Some school brands had gained lots in brand equity, and many had lost. Some private schools had tremendous brand equity, while some (especially some of the higher end public and city council schools) had lost brand equity. Thus some schools were able to take their parent community for granted, on the assumption that they would not leave, and there were plenty of parents queuing at the door.

3. Education is one of those investments you have to be very careful with. You can destroy your bloodline by a bad investment in education, thus parents hesitated to mess around too much with their children's education.

So, what happened? Private schools were taking advantage of this. Some schools were charging the cost of a Toyota Vitz every year to educate a seven year old. The parents looked at it from the perspective that they were giving their children a leg up in life, and there was some cachet in being parent in certain schools that they don't want to give up. 

But now comes the deus ex machina: Corona.

Several things have happened in quick succession. Related, and each feeding off the other:

1. Lots of people have lost income, or lost access to perks. Some people who were getting fees paid by the company have had perk this reduced or eliminated. Salaries have been reduced, and in many cases, jobs have been lost.

2. Expatriates have left, or are in precarious straits. 

3. Because the cost of removing children from school or changing education providers has reduced (both moneywise and reputation-wise), people are now looking at options, which I will proceed to describe. And which leads me to my main thesis (Call it the Kantai Theory of post-2020 Education)

We are at the beginning of the great disaggregation in education. What does this mean? School used to be the place to do everything - get academic instruction, gain friends, engage in extracurricular activities such as sports and music, do some growing up, and even gain religious instruction. 

Now, parents are looking at it in an entirely new way. They are saying to themselves - all these can be separated out and provided by different entities - they will homeschool (which they are forced to anyway because of corona); organise themselves into 'pods' for socials and the extracurriculars, and the like. 

It sounds extremely alien to us, because we literally have never seen anything like it, but this is going to be the reality. And there is an additional factor. Once people get used to receiving these bits and bobs of education, especially formal classroom instruction, at a remove, then things begin to shake out in particularly interesting ways. After all, if Eton, or Gray College, or Geelong Grammar School, can provide online lessons at a fraction of the cost, and without the expense of a flight to England or South Africa or Australia, along with accommodation and other expenses, why should I be paying a million shillings for a school in Nairobi?

There are even more interesting thoughts around this. Why do I need to study at Eton Online, when all I want is the world’s best Maths teacher? If she is available (i.e. disaggregated from her school and all its accoutrements), then I will engage her for her services right in my environment, without having to worry about paying for the cachet of the school she’s based at. She can have students from all over the world. Even better, students no longer have to receive second- or third-hand information. Are you a student in Ghana studying the history of the Gĩkũyũ? Instead of just reading his book, why don’t you get taught by Prof. Mũriũki himself? Why not get taught Physics by Abbott, or Biology by Monkhouse? 

The point is that this revolution is upon us. It will proceed in fits and starts, but is certainly not going backward. Even when learning in schools resumes in earnest, there are parents (and pupils and students) who will take a long, hard look at why they do some of the things that they do in the name of receiving an education. As I wrote a few years ago, why pay for an expensive set of uniforms, or a school bus? Why are classrooms and other school facilities only used for a few hours a day, and for only two thirds of the year? Why do the same people teach, revise, set and mark exams? Why do we provide education based on age?

Everyone in the education system - from Government and other policymakers, to children, to parents and other caregivers, to school owners, teachers and support staff, to ancillary service providers such as food providers, vendors of school supplies and the rest - will have to deal with this revolution. Where it leaves all of us is yet to be seen.