April 2020

The internet’s surge protectors have just survived a major convulsion. Hundreds of millions of people have suddenly found themselves working — and movie-watching, game-playing and video-calling — from home throughout the day. The result, according to Matthew Prince, head of internet infrastructure company Cloudflare, has been a spike in demand that would have brought any other public utility to its knees. His company’s network has seen demand rise more than 50 per cent — the kind of spike that “would be a disaster” in a sewer system or electric grid, he said.

Internet access is, of course, fundamental to sound educational policy. Even before the pandemic, an estimated 12 million schoolchildren had trouble completing schoolwork because they lacked internet access at home. Nevertheless, there is significantly more to online education than streaming a lesson designed for the classroom. Effective virtual education requires new styles of teaching as well as curriculum materials designed specifically for online use.