World Economic Forum pushes virtual education for children despite COVID aftermath

In an article published last week, the World Economic Forum (WEF) promoted education through virtual reality (VR) despite the disastrous effect virtual learning had on children throughout the pandemic. 

The article argued that children should be doing more experiential learning, which can be best done through the “disruption and innovation” of virtual reality, augmented reality and other digital alternatives to in-person learning. 

But the COVID-19 pandemic served as painful evidence that children require interpersonal interaction. 

The damage children have experienced from a lack of interpersonal interaction has led to what experts call a “psychiatric pandemic”; and, while the numbers are still rolling in, some studies place the increase in suicides among children and adolescents at 49%. 

According to one research article published on the National Institute of Health’s website, children attending online distance learning from home are “coping with an unprepared and unprecedented scenario of disruptive technological innovation and digital transformation, as well as other issues such as psychological stress from staying isolated at home, and difficulties in completing distance learning task [sic].

“Recent studies have highlighted that those children exposed to COVID-19 related measures, such as mandatory school closure are more likely to manifest symptoms of anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), stress, insomnia, emotional disturbance, irritability, sleep and appetite disturbance, negative eating habits, and impairment in social interactions," the article continued. 

Even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), one of the chief architects of the pandemic measures, found that “parents whose children received virtual or combined instruction were more likely to report higher prevalence of risk on 11 of 17 indicators of child and parental well-being than were parents whose children received in-person instruction.” 

The authors of the article, Dr. Ali Saeed Bin Harmal Al Dhaheri and Dr. Mohamad Ali Hamade, even acknowledged the perils of starving children of human interaction but decided that the “benefits outweigh the risks.” 

“It should be noted that VR does somewhat limit human interaction if not appropriately monitored and introduced with a guided programme and can cause isolation in younger generations,” wrote the authors. “Still, with the proper research, developments and safeguards, the benefits of VR outweigh the risks.” 

The authors also cited a study to support their claim that VR learning is beneficial for children, though the study is from 2014, way before the pandemic’s agonizing lessons.