By Crawford County Now Staff November 23, 2021 9:00 am
MANSFIELD—During the past few weeks, Mid-Ohio Educational Service Center was proud to host the High School Fall Academic Challenge League in the virtual format. Students competed as teams, answering questions about a wide range of topics including literature, fine arts, geography, history, math, and science.
JV, HS runner up (Ashland)
In varsity league competition, the 14 competing teams split into two divisions. The winner of Division A was Mt. Vernon with team members Emily Hammond, Nick Grega, Makenna Hughes, and Charlie Comfort. The winner of Division B was Lexington with team members Katie S., Thomas S., Maggie S., and Wes H. The junior varsity league winner was the team from Lexington with members Seth D., Jacob H., Grant M., and Chloe D. The runners-up came from Madison. Team members were Nate Osborne, Josh Atwell, Katelynn Ransom, Justin Gibson, Zachary Lucas, Samantha Myers, and Grady McElvain.
The Fall Tournament was back in person at the Mid-Ohio Educational Service Center for the first time prior to COVID. Leanna Ferreira, the coordinator for Academic Challenge, said coaches and students alike were appreciative and the energy level was high as students participated. “It has been over a year since we’ve had in-person meets, and we were so glad that everything went smoothly. We congratulate all of the winners!”
Varsity, HS runner up (Lex)
At the varsity level, sixteen teams faced off in two brackets. The winner of each bracket then faced off for the ultimate winner. Mt. Vernon (winner of bracket B) took champion overall, with the team of Emily Hammond, Nick Grega, Makenna Hughes and Charlie Comfort. Lexington (winner of Bracket A) took runner-up overall with team members Katie S., Thomas S., Maggie S., and Wes H.
JV, league runner up (Madison)
In the junior varsity tournament, there were 16 teams competing in two brackets. The top teams from each bracket faced off in the final. Lexington, the winner for Bracket A, secured the victory. Team members were Seth D., Jacob H., Grant M., and Chloe D. Ashland A, the winner of Bracket B, took runner-Up. Drew Briggs, Klooey Kaeser, James Kinney, Andrew Martin, Riley Hammond, and Austin Conrad made up the team.
Mid-Ohio Educational Service Center provides specialized academic and support services to 11 school districts and over 18,000 students in Crawford, Morrow, and Richland Counties. Client districts receive services from curriculum, gifted and special education consultants, speech pathologists, psychologists, special education teachers, occupational therapists, and physical therapists.
More children are staying away from the classroom and being home-schooled after the pandemic (PA) (PA Wire)
The number of children being home schooled in England has risen amid parents’ concerns over Covid-19, a survey suggests.
The Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) estimated 115,542 children and young people were being home educated at some point during the 2020/21 academic year, up 34{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} from the previous year.
The ADCS said the most common reason parents decided to home-school children was due to concerns over Covid-19.
It added that local authorities said they had been notified by parents who were pulling children out of school because they had become concerned over their emotional health, anxiety and mental health needs.
A child during a Year 5 class at a primary school in Yorkshire (Danny Lawson/PA) (PA Archive)
In a snapshot comparison, the ADCS also looked at the number of children being home-schooled on school census day on October 7 this year. It concluded an estimated 81,196 children were being home-schooled across all 152 local authorities in England – a rise of seven per cent from the same school census day the year before.
The report published by the ADCS said the number of children being electively home educated has been growing 20{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} each year for the past five years.
A total of 117 local authorities told ADCS they provided support to families with children being home educated using video calls, phone calls and meetings. The authorities said there was a “huge loophole in elective home schooling’s national policy, which makes the existing policy unsafe”.
In a comment made in the report, it was said: “There needs to be a statutory duty implemented to ensure our children who are home educated are learning, have regular home visits (that are statutory, not parental option) so the child is seen and to observe the work taking place.”
Gail Tolley, chair of the ADCS’s educational achievement policy committee, said: “Every child has the right to a suitable education, and we recognise that parents have the right to educate their child at home.
“For six years now, we have seen year-on-year increases in the number of children being educated at home. This report highlights just how much of an impact the pandemic and the closure of some schools has had on this number.
ADCS is concerned that without powers to see both the child and their place of learning, we cannot know that these children are receiving a suitable education in a safe and appropriate learning environment
Gail Tolley, ADCS
“Local authorities have a duty to ensure that children being educated at home are safe and receiving a good education, yet we do not have a role in assurance of this, nor is there adequate guidance on what a suitable education looks like.
“ADCS is concerned that without powers to see both the child and their place of learning, we cannot know that these children are receiving a suitable education in a safe and appropriate learning environment.”
She said ADCS is calling on the Government to establish a mandatory register of all electively home-educated children, with a duty on the local authority to visit the child to assess their education provided.
A Department for Education spokeswoman said: “We support parents who want to educate their children at home. However, now more than ever, it is absolutely vital that any decision to home educate is made with the child’s best interests at the forefront of parents’ minds.
“We have provided guidance for councils and parents to help them in situations where home education is being considered, and remain committed to a registration system for children not in school, which will help councils with their existing duty to make sure all children receive a suitable education.
“Further details on the register will be set out in our upcoming consultation response.”
Although most parents and carers provide a good home education, the LGA is concerned that the pandemic has led to increasing numbers of children receiving education outside the classroom and missing out on the benefits that a school environment brings
Anntoinette Bramble, Local Government Association
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT, said: “The Government must find out the reasons behind so many more families choosing home education.
“The concern is that many appear to have chosen home education because they have lost faith in the Government’s approach to school safety during the pandemic.”
He added there was a “clear safeguarding concern”. This was because there was no legal obligation for a parent to provide any notification to a school about the withdrawal of a child to be home educated.
He said: “It could lead to a child at risk being missed, with neither school nor local authority knowing for certain what has happened to them. Without an officially maintained register, there remains the risk of children becoming lost outside system.”
Councillor Anntoinette Bramble, chair of the Local Government Association’s Children and Young People Board, said local authorities need to be given more powers to enter homes to ensure children are receiving a suitable education.
She said: “Although most parents and carers provide a good home education, the LGA is concerned that the pandemic has led to increasing numbers of children receiving education outside the classroom and missing out on the benefits that a school environment brings, such as safeguarding and learning and socialising with other children.”
We know regular exercise is really good for health, but even with the best of intentions, many workers do not exercise as much as they should. To get more workers in all types of workplaces to be active, public health messaging must move away from making it only an individual’s responsibility to be more active. It should instead recognize the important role employers can play in creating the conditions for workers to focus on exercise.
There’s much to be said for this approach. From a public health perspective, focusing on workplaces can seem like low-hanging fruit, since they are settings where people already go every day. Consider the resources that would otherwise be required to build activity-friendly environments, let alone address the root social causes of physical inactivity. However, the reality is more complicated.
On-site gyms and access to walking paths or stairs support workplace fitness. (Shutterstock)
The World Health Organization’s physical activity guidelines recommend adults strive for at least 150-300 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity, or 75-150 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity, or an equivalent combination every week. To meet these recommendations, for 80 per cent of working-age Canadians in full-time jobs, it means finding time to exercise before, after or at work.
That’s easier for some than others. I am part of a team at the Institute for Work and Health that published a paper showing that people in certain work conditions are less likely to exercise. These are workers who: report long work hours, have little say in how to use their skills, or are in physically or psychologically demanding jobs.
Otherstudies have reported the same. These findings support the theory that stressful and strenuous working conditions can increase a worker’s fatigue and decrease motivation and perceived time available to exercise.
Workplace spillover
Job-related physical activity often does not provide the same health benefits of leisure-time exercise. (Shutterstock)
The spillover of strenuous working lives on exercise participation is a reality for many people — especially when there are competing demands such as taking care of children. But the ability to overcome these barriers can depend on job type.
Supportive workplace facilities that offer standing desks, stairs, on-site showers and gyms and easy access to walking paths can make it easier for people to fit in exercise and reduce sedentary time. However, these are mostly available to white-collar, higher-income workers who already face fewer barriers to exercise outside of work.
Read more:
Lack of exercise linked to increased risk of severe COVID-19
Some manual labour jobs involve high levels of physical activity with little time to rest, while workers in service sector jobs can spend long periods of time standing. A body of research is showing the potential harm of these occupational activities — including the risks of physical activity for people doing such jobs. Job-related physical activity often does not provide the same health benefits of leisure-time exercise, and can even have negative effects because of factors like the nature of the movements and duration of work.
Healthy workers are safer workers
Many employees have little say in how they spend their work time. (Shutterstock)
Physical activity guidelines aimed at all adults will not be achievable for many workers. A more inclusive solution is for employers to create the conditions for their workers to thrive so that they can also prioritize their health.
In another example, a police department reduced the number of night shifts for its officers. It also offered mental health support and allowed staff to take one hour off each shift to exercise. The result was a reduction in workplace injuries.
Enhancing working conditions
Employers should discuss supportive policies and practices with workers to create a workplace environment that supports the safety, health and well-being of their employees. (Unsplash/Arlington Research)
Employers that want to create an environment conducive to the safety, health and well-being of their employees should discuss with their workers how policies and practices could support those goals.
While there is no simple solution to getting workers more physically active, an important step forward is to get employers involved in enhancing working conditions so that more Canadian workers are supported in getting the health benefits of regular exercise.
As the COVID-19 pandemic surges across the United States, colleges have been forced to adjust their plans almost daily. As of late August 2020, just one-fifth of colleges in the United States were planning to return to campus fully or primarily in-person,
with the balance either undecided or planning for hybrid, online, or other remote teaching models. Already, several colleges have had to rapidly shift to 100 percent remote instruction following local COVID-19 outbreaks.
Audio
Listen to this article
Last spring, as colleges were forced to move to remote models from one day to the next, the focus was on ensuring engagement and access for students, and just-in-time training for faculty to finish the academic year. As restrictions on in-person learning extended through the fall, the imperative shifted to building the capability to provide a robust remote offering for the longer term. This need for remote learning has expanded interest in developing or scaling proper online education, leveraging the best practices learned from a set of institutions that have successfully implemented this educational model.
In this article, we briefly outline trends in online higher education over the past decade. Then, we review five critical lessons from leading online institutions that could help every university improve and scale their online offerings. The marketplace is moving quickly, so institutions of higher learning must act now.
The shift to online: At first a trickle, and now a flood
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, online education was a driver of growth in higher education. As traditional enrollment in postsecondary institutions continues to decline, distance learning has increased by around 40 percent in five years, from 2.2 million students in 2012 to 3.1 million students in 2017. While some students studied online exclusively, more took a combination of online and in-person courses. Before the pandemic hit, roughly one-third of students had taken at least one online course.
However, this growth was unevenly distributed. Big institutions such as Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU), Western Governors University (WGU), and Arizona State University (ASU) accounted for around 10 percent of the growth, building national brands for online higher education that set them apart from their peers (Exhibit 1).
Exhibit 1
We strive to provide individuals with disabilities equal access to our website. If you would like information about this content we will be happy to work with you. Please email us at: [email protected]
A trend that was playing out over a decade was then compressed into a semester. While many students will likely return to in-person learning when it is safe, others may stay remote for the long term, raising the
stakes on building sustainable offerings, not just stopgaps. Indeed, GSV Ventures, a venture-capital fund focusing on digital education, forecasts that “online-first pedagogy will become normalized for virtually every college student” and all growth in higher education until 2030 will happen online.
The imperative is clear: every university should build a robust online offering, and fast.
Taking the plunge: Standing up online programs
We interviewed leading online universities to understand what it takes to plan and implement quality online programs in higher education. We identified five key success factors.
Develop a student-centered approach
“The secret sauce to our success is our student-advising operation,” says Paul LeBlanc, president of SNHU. Leading institutions agree with this statement and have developed online strategies with one main objective in mind: support students to successfully complete their programs. Institutions have put in place three types of student support mechanisms to achieve this goal:
Personalized counseling and guidance. ASU and SNHU use personal success coaches and academic advisers to help students navigate admissions, enrollment, degree selection, and course requirements. Counselors also employ predictive analytics to identify students at risk of struggling academically and provide the required interventions.
Engagement with in-person and online communities. Part of student success relies on developing strong ties with faculty and peers. To ensure student engagement, Pennsylvania State University and SNHU have introduced personalized feedback sessions between faculty and students, enhanced peer-to-peer interactions through video calls, access to in-person networking events, and development of online
communities (for example, an honors society).
24/7 IT support to enhance learning experience. State University of New York and ASU installed a 24/7 IT concierge service that helps students with technical questions related to course access, course materials, and software.
Invest heavily in marketing
The biggest players spend heavily on marketing (Exhibit 2). Institutions with the largest online enrollment have marketing budgets similar to fast-growth tech and digital-retail companies. We found a positive correlation between share of voice and market share; in other words, the more an institution spent on marketing, the higher its market share. This highlights the role of marketing in spurring enrollment.
Exhibit 2
We strive to provide individuals with disabilities equal access to our website. If you would like information about this content we will be happy to work with you. Please email us at: [email protected]
Two-thirds of students complete their first application within four weeks of starting a search for online programs. Leading institutions recognize that online students move faster in their decision-making process than their peers in the in-person applicant pool and have seamlessly integrated their marketing efforts with enrollment departments. Students not only move faster during their application process but also expect to receive timely information on financial aid and transferring credits when finalizing enrollment. The Online College Students report shows that within two weeks of having applied, 71 percent of online students expect to find out how to transfer previously earned credits, while 66 percent expect to receive an estimate of their financial aid award.
To enable a seamless application and enrollment process, SNHU established a team of 275 admissions representatives that follow up with interested students within two minutes of a query. It also uses a credit-transfer team that supports students tracking down the necessary transcripts for a small fee. The university recognizes that time-sensitive adult learners are the target of its programs and require a streamlined application and enrollment process.
Involve faculty early and enable academic staff to launch successful programs
Helping faculty develop successful online programs comprises two areas of support:
Provide faculty with the time required to develop online offerings. In our interviews, faculty members cited fear of time commitment and lack of recognition for remote teaching when asked to develop an online offering. Universities have added monetary and nonmonetary incentives to address those issues. University of Central Florida provides faculty with stipends and time for instructors to pursue the training required to develop and launch quality online courses. Similarly, Pennsylvania State University gives faculty the same credit for developing and teaching remote courses that they would receive for teaching in-person programs. The latter is aimed at addressing the perception that online classes are inferior to in-person courses.
Develop a standardized end-to-end process to support faculty. We identified a series of best practices that some universities have put in place to support faculty, from the assessment of the idea to quality assurance when launching an offering:
Create a standardized course proposal and approval process. To launch viable online courses, University of Florida created a central curriculum-development team with a dual mission: first, identify potential offerings that respond to both students’ needs and labor-market demand while taking advantage of the university’s strengths, and second, assess ideas proposed by faculty using the same framework.
Provide instructional design and course-production support to ensure offerings meet students’ needs. University of Florida’s Center for Online Innovation and Production supports faculty with training, instructional designers, and all production needs.
Develop a strict quality assurance process. ASU has a dedicated design and development team that manages quality assurance with a detailed rubric to measure course quality. It includes 22 instructional designers who each support 50 to 75 faculty members.
Establish an online organization with clear accountability
When defining the organizational structure required to carry out and grow an online program, institutions reported following three guiding principles (see sidebar, “Choosing an appropriate operationalization model”):
Have a clearly designated unit, with budget responsibility and decision-making power, that is responsible for executing the online program.
Enable faculty participation to ensure that implementation meets student needs and provides the support faculty requires to develop quality programs. Most of the public institutions interviewed reported having the online organization under the provost as a mechanism to enable faculty to take a leadership role in shaping the organization’s value proposition.
Define clear targets and ensure standardized practices are put in place to meet these targets. Examples of standardized practices include a vetting system to assess financial viability of new programs along with a clear resource-allocation framework for course development.
Adjust standard operating procedures to align with the needs of frequent online start options and shorter terms
Online programs that scale rapidly typically offer concentrated learning modules of six to eight weeks. They have multiple, staggered start options ranging from four to six in a given year (for example, January, March, May, June, August, and October) to provide several flexible entry points for target audiences. August and January are the most popular and have the highest enrollment of the start options. Most traditional university programs offer only fall, spring and, in some cases, summer admissions cycles.
The multiple-starts approach has important implications for several teams involved with the operations and student life cycle, including:
Admissions. Six application-processing cycles, with shorter turnaround times compared with schools that have three traditional cycles.
Marketing. Digital and print advertising must be rapidly readjusted and relaunched for each of the six starts.
Financial aid. Turnaround and application-processing times ramp up with significant spikes in activity in the five days before the admissions deadline versus traditional admissions cycles, in which financial aid processing is typically completed several months before the deposit deadline.
Student success. Advisers and counselors must get accustomed to digital responses, broader availability, and proactive outreach to address motivation and persistence.
Universities that operationalize online programs successfully also take into account these adjustments:
appointing people dedicated to directing online operations within their respective teams
instilling a strong customer-focused view in colleagues who support online operations
tweaking the school calendar to be flexible for the variations needed with multiple starts (for example, flexible work hours over the holiday break to ensure support for the January launch)
creating buffer capacity in their teams to address spikes in activity just before and after a new class start compared with traditional enrollment cycle activity
The transition to any form of online education is a major effort. In the past, universities could choose whether to invest in a first-rate online offering. Now, they have little choice, and they need to act fast. The good news is that there is plenty of experience from which to draw and build. Universities that take these lessons to heart can create or scale an online offering that will not only carry them through the pandemic but also set them up for success in a post-COVID-19 higher-education world.
Android games are for more than just driving, shooting, hacking, and slashing, as they can be used for educational purposes as well, and we’ve rounded up some of the best apps for that. There are tons of games out there that are targeted at grades k-12 to help them learn.
But which ones are the best out there? It can be tough finding the apps that will actually have a positive impact on your child’s education. Here’s a list of 10 of the best educational apps on the Google Play Store.
Game
Download Cost
In-app cost (per item)
PBS Games
Free
Free
Khan Academy Kids
Free
Free
Sago Mini School Kids 2-5
Free
$7.99 – $59.99
Lingo Kids
Free
$.99 – $139.99
Kidzooly Preschool Games
Free
$2.49
Kiddopia
Free
$.99 – $99.99
ABC Mouse
Free
$9.95 – $79.99
Adventure Academy
Free
$9.99 – $79.99
Montessori Preschool
Free
$.99 – $59.99
Animal Preschool
Free
$.99 – $3.99
PBS Games
Everyone should be familiar with PBS Kids and its collection of popular educational shows. The company developed its own app, and it comes with a slew of educational and kid-safe games to keep your toddler entertained.
It has an easy-to-navigate interface with large pictures representing your kids’ favorite shows. Right now, there are 29 shows that your kids can choose from, each with its own selection of games. Each show has a thumbnail of the show’s lead character, so kids can navigate them easily.
As an added treat, everything in the app is free of charge. There are no subscriptions, in-app purchases, or ads. There’s a “grownup; section where you can donate money to PBS if you please.
Khan Academy Kids
Khan Academy has been around since 2008, and it’s become a popular nonprofit educational organization. Khan Academy Kids brings this same mentality, only in app form. This app contains a plethora of different educational activities that kids are sure to enjoy.
This app is definitely for younger kids; most of the activities are really basic. They are meant to focus on developmental skills like motor skills, color identification, and basic phonics. There are also some fun interactive music videos, and the kids are led around the app by a cast of fun animated animals.
Since Khan Academy is a nonprofit organization, you won’t have to pay for any of the activities or features. It’s free to download and there are no in-app purchases.
Sago Mini School takes a different approach to its educational material. Instead of subjects, kids navigate themes like trash and recycling, plant life, snow, birds, firefighters, bicycles, and a bunch more. Each theme has several different educational activities for kids to play.
There’s enough music, animated characters, and voice acting to keep children entertained for a long time. Like most educational games, the UI is divided into large and easily identifiable pictures and icons.
Sago Mini School is free to download, but if you want the full experience, it’ll cost you $7.99/month with the option to pay $59.99/year. If you have Google Play Pass, you will automatically have a yearly subscription.
Lingokids is one of the more advanced apps on this list as it’s an entire suite of games, activities, music videos, and animations. As your kid progresses through the content, they’ll unlock more content.
Linogkids stands out among most educational apps with its use of fully animated videos and live-action videos as well. Not only that, but the company has its own cast of recognizable characters that populate all of the activities and videos.
In order to get the full experience, parents will have to pay $14.99/month. The amount of content you get is definitely worth the high price tag. If you want a yearly subscription, you can pay $139.99/year.
Kidzooley Preschool games is relatively simple compared to the other apps, but it’s still really useful. This is definitely for those in early education, and it shows. There are activities like simple puzzles, letter tracing, simple spelling games, and more.
As with all of the educational apps, the UI is really easy to navigate with large and colorful buttons. They’re all animated GIFs that give you some idea of what the activity is. There’s also some cheery music playing in the background. What’s neat is that you can play these games offline.
The only downside to this game is that there are ads. When you complete some activities, you’ll get a short video ad. Fortunately, if you want to unlock all of the activities and remove the ads, it’s only a one-time payment of $2.49
Kiddopia, like most other educational apps, hits you hard with playful music and colorful visuals. The interface is divided into 16 different subjects, and each subject has a plethora of different types of activities. Plainly put, there’s a ton of content with this app.
There’s a cast of animal characters that your child can interact with, and these animals are part of every activity. Along with games, there are animated music videos that also teach your kids.
If you want access to all of the content, you will need to pay $7.99/month with a one-week free trial. That’s more than decent of a price for all of the content you’re getting
ABCmouse has been a popular brand in education for some years now. The app brings a similar learning experience to the website with a wide range of educational activities. The interface isn’t as straightforward and easy to read as most educational apps out there, so younger kids may need their parents to navigate for them.
You have the typical array of games, activities, and animated shows that you can choose from. Your child has the option to pick and choose what they want to do at random or they can try the “Learning Path” with activities presented in order.
In order to access the educational content, you’ll be paying $12.99/month. That’s a decent price for such a complete suite of content. There’s also the option to pay $59.99/year.
Adventure Academy is an app that’s in the same vein as ACBmouse. It’s from the same company, and it has much of the same approach to learning. There is an ocean of educational content to keep your child busy; this includes videos, games, cartoons, and activities.
What makes this different from ABCmouse and other educational apps is the 3D rendered interface. You play as an avatar, and you roam the halls of this huge educational academy. There, you meet a bunch of different professors that you interact with and complete tasks for. Along with the professors, there are kiosks that you can go to if you want to access all of the content.
If you’re interested in Adventure Academy, it will cost you $12.99/month to access everything. If you want to pay yearly, it will cost you $59.99/year.
Montessori Preschool is, unsurprisingly, for preschoolers. It’s chock-full of fun and simple activities to help develop young minds. It’s pretty simple in its nature; no music or flashy animations. It does, however, have a good selection of games to choose from.
You get the typical array of subjects like math, colors, code and logic, literacy, music, and plenty more. The interface is pretty straightforward with all of the subjects represented as tiles on the bottom of the screen.
You get a pretty limited amount of content for free, but to unlock everything, it will cost you $9.99/month. There’s also the option to pay $59.99/year.
Animal Preschool is about as straightforward as an educational app can get. The interface centers around large and bubbly cartoon animals. You scroll through the animal icons to select which subject you want to play. Navigating this way should make it easy for a child to find their favorite subject.
This game is a bit different from the other games in that each activity you choose gives you a succession of activities rather than letting you choose which one to play. You see the animal on one side of the screen, and they’re trying to make it to the other side. Each question you answer correctly gets the animal a step closer to its goal.
Animal Preschool is one of the more inexpensive apps on this list. You get a pretty good amount of content for free, but you can pay $3.99 to unlock the rest of the animals.
Australia Monday announced easing of travel restrictions from next month, paving way for an estimated 20,000 students from Punjab to fly to that country in the next couple of months.
From December 1, fully vaccinated eligible visa holders, including students and skilled workers, can fly to Australia without needing to apply for a travel exemption.
Consultants in Punjab dealing in education abroad said the students have started calling them with queries as they intend to fly to Australia as soon as possible.
India is the second largest source of foreign students in Australia, behind China. During 2019-20, Indian students contributed US $6.6 billion to the Australian economy, informed Leverage Education, a platform which provides complete services to students pursuing international education and careers in around 250+ universities in various countries.
Chitresh Dhawan, who owns the Dhawan Educational Consultancy in Amritsar — one of the oldest in the state dealing with education abroad — said his business had come down to almost zero owing to the travel restrictions imposed by Australia. “The Australian government had allowed online classes but had imposed stringent pandemic-related travel restrictions around 19 months ago, effectively putting a ban in students wishing to travel to that country. Soon after the announcement, there has been huge rush of visitors to the office as well as over the phone from students and their parents,” he said.
Dhawan said that around 20,000 students from Punjab are ready to fly to Australia. The numbers will go up once the first set of students land in that country and share their experience.
“The federal government has allowed people to travel to Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales. Western Australia is yet to open,” he added.
He said the primary reason behind the students, especially those who had been pursuing courses online, wanting to rush to Australia is that they can work part time jobs to pay for their education. “Most of these students come from middle class families. They usually arrange for half the fee and pay up the remaining amount after working part time abroad, an option that they don’t have here,” he said.
Visionway IELTS and Immigration Institute in Nawanshahr, which facilitates students opting to pursue courses in Australia, Canada, and the UK, said that after the announcement by the Australian government, there is a lot of excitement among the students who have started making enquiries and want to complete visa formalities at the earliest.
Rahul Sapra, who wants to go to Australia, said that he had cleared the IELTS in early 2020 and wants to board a flight before the score’s validity ends. “My sister went there six years ago to pursue MBA. She now has a job and is settled there. She wanted me to go there after my 10+2 but then the Covid pandemic played spoilsport,” said Sapra, adding he too wants to pursue a degree in MBA.
Another student, Kajal Dhalla, who earlier had planned to go to Canada, now wants to fly to Australia. “I am completing all the formalities so that I can reach Australia for February intake,” she said.
Australia used to be the favoured destination for students from Punjab till seven-eight years back. Over one lakh students used to fly every year to Australia from India, mainly from Punjab.
The Australian government has said those visiting the country will have to be fully vaccinated with a vaccine approved or recognised by Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA). They will also have to present a negative Covid-19 RT-PCR test report not older than three days.
