“We have spoken a lot about the process of learning, but we have not in any way discussed how we are measuring that learning,” said Charles Theuma, Principal of St Martin’s Institute, on today’s episode of The Boardroom, which delved into the education sector and COVID-19.

Saint Martin's Institute of Higher Education is a licensed private, tertiary-level institution, offering University of London qualifications. Students with St Martin’s Institute are therefore at least aged 17 and upwards, and thus they were generally more equipped to deal with the digital shift.

Mr Theuma highlighted that the institute already had a ‘digital’ culture embedded, teachers of certain subjects were hesitant at first to deliver lectures online. While the complete digital shift had its challenges but was ultimately a success, the Principal homed in on the process of examinations, saying that much has been discussed about the process of learning, but now the way in which that learning is measured.

“This is something very close to my heart and I loved the pandemic for this reason – no more are we testing students for memory, because this year, all exams were being carried out at home – as an open book exam. There is no more having to memorise dates, authors, names of articles, with students then forgetting all they have learnt a few weeks after the examination.

“Education is the ability to assimilate knowledge from the people around you, and then be able to apply it. I sincerely hope that we retain this open-book style of examination, I have already written to the University of London about it, because personally I loved it”, he said.

Onto how education must keep up with the changing workplace, Mr Theuma said a change in the way employees’ work is being measures should be reflected in the education sector.

“Our mentality with work is still of the industrial age,” he said, adding that pre-COVID, and to a certain extent now, the workplace mentality currently supports the notion that workers should be supervised.

“This will disappear as organisations had to reply on people working from home. There was a shift in remuneration based on time spent at the office to remuneration based on a worker’s productivity in their own time. In the light of this, education has to follow suite,” he said.

“Educators are the trainers and developers of human beings ready to follow their career. If the workplace is going to change, we as educators have to change as well,” he added.