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BGA | BUSINESS IMPACT
I t depends how long it lasts for, doesn’t it? If [the effects of Covid-19] last another 12 months, then we will really change our habits of consumption and it will impact many different things… A person that is sitting in Mexico might think: “Why would I go somewhere else [to study] when I’m just going to be confined to a smaller apartment with worse weather, far from my family.” But then you can’t forget that online education has no geography – it goes both ways. If this lasts a long time then the consumption of education is going to change. The decisions that students take and the way they think are going to be a whole different ball game, and we will have to figure out if they want to stay local and stay on campus with a renowned brand, or if they want to go for online education with an international, worldwide university.’ From his home in Mexico City, Alfredo Nava Govela, Director of the School of Economics and Business at Universidad Anáhuac México, is reflecting on the pandemic situation (this interview took place towards the end of 2020) and speculating how questions of student intentions and mobility might play out in the near future. ‘The longer Covid-19 lasts, the more there is going to be structural change,’ he surmises. Already, Nava has observed a number of trends to the impact of Covid-19 from his vantage point at the helm of a Business School that forms one of 18 schools within the wider university. ‘It’s funny because some students are saying: “Well, I don’t have to commute,”’ before offering an example from the perspective of a part-time student that combines work and study, as most students of postgraduate business education in Mexico do: ‘Here in Mexico City, a commute will be at least 45 minutes to one hour. So, if I’m in my house and I have to go to work, that’s 45 minutes. For those who then go to university, that’s another 45 minutes. Then, from the university back to my house, that’s another 45 minutes. It works out to be at least two hours of travel, so if a person does “home office” and then “home School”, or “home MBA”, then they're going to have two more hours deposited into their life per day, and that makes some sense.’ Facilitating collaboration As well as the obvious disadvantages, the realities of the pandemic have brought further advantages. For one, the increasing ease and comfort with which faculty, and indeed, society as a whole, have taken to online platforms has allowed the School of Economics and Business at Anáhuac to pursue new forms of domestic and international collaboration that can benefit its students directly. ‘Since faculty around the world are willing to log into a streaming platform and teach, we’re looking to bring in international professors to co-teach with our
professors maybe just in one subject or class,’ says Nava, referencing Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) projects with faculty that share research links in particular. ‘We’re also bringing businesspeople to the classroom. Before this, it was hard to bring a CEO of a firm to talk to a cohort of 20 students on the MBA – it was hard for them just to commute for an hour but now we’re taking advantage of this.’ Other initiatives seek to replicate parts of the programme experience that students might have feared losing when classes were shifted online: ‘We’re doing seminars where we’re bringing in businesspeople and experts from the World Bank, the OECD, or the UN, for example,’ Nava says in reference to the Anáhuac MBA. ‘They are still Zoom experiences, but it is trying to do something extra that you would do if you were on campus. ‘I [also] want to have students getting in touch with students around the world,’ Nava continues, outlining the idea of collaborative assignments that could be coordinated by professors that teach the same class in different countries and at different institutions. Once everybody goes back to the classroom, it’s going to be tough [to do this]. There’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity right now to be international without leaving your country, and to get faculty and students to interact with each other.’
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‘If this lasts a long time then the consumption of education is going to change’
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