Deputy Principal of the Elmore Stoutt High School, Cecil Hodge said he believes technology is poised to play an integral role in the global education system. As a result, he said school administrators will now be considering recruiting teachers who are tech-savvy to ensure greater efficiency in the future.

“There is a group [of teachers] that we know for a fact would have said, ‘listen to me, this is not my era’. We knew that they would have certainly struggled with it (technology). Then you have other teachers who are helping them but we know for a fact that they would not be motivated to work to the efficient level that we would want to have,” Hodge explained.

90 percent of teachers onboard

Hodge estimated that about 90 percent of teachers he has encountered have grasped the technological changes of the hybrid learning model.

He said this group includes teachers who were not tech-savvy before COVID-19 but have been successfully trained.

As for the remaining 10 percent of educators who are lagging behind, Hodge said he believes they will walk away from teaching.

He stated: “Ninety percent of your teachers would be in the super-category or those who we would have trained and they would get it. Those others, we know for a fact that in the future we would probably be looking for teachers who could [manage] because they (the non-adapters) would decide that this is moving at a different level for them,” Hodge explained.

The hybrid learning approach refers to the blend of online learning and in-person classes that was adopted in 2020 because of the impact of COVID-19.

Educators aren’t the only ones struggling with the changes. Challenges have been identified among students and parents who have to balance work and supervising more than one child.