Parent Concerns: Have Schools Forgotten Parents?

As the world continues to fight against the pandemic, there is a different kind of fear growing in the hearts of parents. Numerous global studies have found that parent concerns around the impact of this pandemic and subsequent lockdown on their children’s education are increasing. In fact, some of them have been having sleepless nights. As the entire schooling system stares at a possible shift in learning and teaching patterns, parents wonder whether this almost-paradigm shift is going to disrupt more than it is going to empower.

“In fact, nearly 77% of parents think that the outbreak and the following lockdown will affect their child’s education in some way.”

At Univariety, we have been running our annual Parent Expectation Survey to understand the most common parent concerns, and the results have echoed the same issues. Parents are worried.

Sit Up And Take Notice

The Top 3 Concerns of the High School Parent

1. Lack of Clarity

The situation is grave. And several high-school students are at a crossroads. Should they continue to make plans to study abroad or should they now study in India? We found that 72% of the students on our platform were inclined towards dropping their plans for studying abroad. Consequently, there is more confusion in the minds of students and parents. They feel that they are back to square one.

I am planning to make stronger backup plans. Most of my backup involved other colleges that were abroad. But now I am looking for more Indian colleges without having to make huge compromises on the kind of education I want.

Since there is now a change in the country choice, college choice also is uncertain. Parents are desperately on the hunt for good colleges that offer interdisciplinary courses and teach higher-order skills in addition to subject knowledge. And many of them are looking up to their teachers and educators to understand what they should do next.

2. Lack of Awareness/Confidence

Whilst many parents have accepted the fact that their child’s future is going to experience a massive challenge, they are still unsure of their alternative options. In some cases, they are entirely unaware.

Process this: while 72% of parents were convinced that their child has chosen the right career based on his/her interest, only 5% of parents were even aware of what course options were available to their children for college

3. Preparation for higher education

Only 11% of parents were confident that they and their children were well-prepared in terms of the ideal list of colleges, and what they need to do to get an admission.

As many as 50% of parents said they needed immediate help in finalizing an ideal list of colleges.

66% of parents said they were unsure of entrance exams, country-based application requirements, and course options or alternatives.

This survey of parent concerns goes to show how parents are in dire need of an expert to guide them through these troubling times.

Solutions implemented by Top Indian Schools

1. Webinars

In the last four weeks, we have conducted over 30 webinars for parents and students from all over the country. These webinars discussed a range of topics, some of which were:

University Applications: All you Need to Know
Entrance Exam Preparation Tips
Commerce Course & Entrance Exam Updates
3 Digital Tools for Skill Building
21st – century skills for success: An introduction
Experts Speak: What College Admissions look like in 2020

2. How have schools been leveraging?

Many of our partner schools have been in constant touch with their parents and sharing communication about the webinars with them. As a result of this tight communication, in the last few weeks, nearly 4000 parents have attended these webinars and updated themselves with much more information. Some of them have also been in regular touch with our counsellors online.

3. Online Counselling Sessions

Schools have been encouraging confused parents to reach out directly to the expert career guidance counselling team at Univariety. 1000 parents from various schools have reached out to us in the last one month to discuss their questions

school leaders — Students/parents have been in constant touch with counsellors.

4. Schools Must Be More Involved

As the first points of contact with students, we understand what their likes/dislikes and aptitudes are. It is up to us to help them in these critical times. Empower your students and parents by introducing them to the Univariety platform.

Thanks to our unique milestone approach, students can go through the process of career planning in the most systematic manner with regular interventions by our experienced counselling team.

Talk to us About Cutting Edge Career Guidance Today!

Sources:

https://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/news/18355734.parents-worried-lockdown-will-affect-childrens-education/
Univariety’s Annual Expectation Survey for Parents, 2019-20, sample size 17,000 parents of students from grades 9-12, across 122 cities in India

Nidarshana Sharma

Content Manager at Univariety

A self-proclaimed coffee addict and a fan of self-help books, Nidarshana works very closely with schools, universities, and educators at Univariety. In her decade-long career, she has dabbled in Account Management, Zumba fitness, and in several forms of writing- from features to creative blogs to social media. She is also a dancer, fitness enthusiast, and a noisy vegan