The traditionally slow-moving education sector has been rocked by the global pandemic, setting in motion changes, that many education professionals believe are long overdue. There’s been a massive uptake of EdTech tools and online education platforms. At first, this was in the effort to ensure continuity in learners’ and students’ education during lockdowns. However, schools, teachers, learners and their families found benefits from their digital explorations and experiences that they want to continue. There are many families who have post-lockdown, transferred to online schooling, home schooling and hybrid learning solutions.
While the concept of ‘unbundling education’ is so far mostly discussed in the context of tertiary education, it can apply just as easily to schooling, and is likely to become popular in the private school, online school and school improvement spaces. Just as the unbundling option on your TV service offers you tailored choices and cost benefits because you only pay for the channels you actually watch; unbundling education will enable families to choose specific education services relevant to their children at lower costs.
Mark Anderson, Principal of Koa Academy which embraces the unbundled education concept explains, “Our COVID lockdown experience has showed us that paying full private school fees for a purely online programme just does not make sense. After all, those fees include the cost of the academic programme, all the teachers, the entire running costs and maintenance of the physical facilities and a myriad of other brick-and-mortar related costs that were irrelevant to families with kids learning online at home for months. This has opened many parents’ eyes to the fact that an unbundled education makes the most sense in the long run where they could pay for different education service providers to suit their child’s individual needs at lower costs. Unbundled education empowers parents to be more selective with limited resources, accessing the best opportunities for their children across their changing educational and life stages.”
Koa Academy puts this into practice by offering families a top quality IEB academic program along with unbundled education options. In addition to covering the full academic programme for grades 4-12, the Academy helps Koa children explore and identify their unique passions and then offers both in-house enrichment options as well as helping parents to leverage the benefits of the extra time and resources which are freed up by online learning. Koa also partners with third-party service providers in many spheres to offer Koa-partner discount rates. Mark concludes, “This enables Koa families to access many more options than are typically available at any one school, as well as access the best available options, all at lower costs.”
Discover Koa Academy here.
Leave a Reply