Continuing education and COVID-19: where is the journey going, who are the winners and who are the losers

Trends in continuing education Association survey 2021

As every year, the Wuppertaler Kreis www.wkr-ev-de, surveyed its members about trends in in-company training. This year, of course, with a special focus on COVID-19 and the consequences for the continuing education sector.

The members of the Wuppertaler Kreis employ over 15,000 permanent and almost 34,000 freelance trainers and lecturers. Even in the crisis year 2020, more than 1.1 million participants took part in the training courses and events organized by the member institutes of the Wuppertal Circle.

The survey deals in particular with the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in the continuing education sector.

The focus of this year’s survey is on the impact of COVID-19 on business operations and its consequences. What is changing at the moment, which companies will not survive the crisis and which will emerge the “winners”.

Current status:

The comparative figures for 2019 show just how dramatic the slump was in 2020. Almost all suppliers reported a significant drop in sales compared to previous years.

This applied equally to the open seminar and conference program as well as the company’s internal training measures.

Unfortunately, according to the respondents, no significant recovery is expected in 2021 either. Although half see an increase in open training courses compared to 2020, only 39% see an increase in in-house seminars.

For over 85% of survey participants, planning uncertainty regarding the feasibility of face-to-face seminars continues to be a very big problem

Trend:

The pandemic has given the starting signal for increased innovation in new formats and technical developments. It (the pandemic) is seen as a disruptive factor for continuing education.

There is also consensus on the question of whether the pandemic is a profound disruption that is fundamentally reshaping continuing education.

It is particularly interesting that almost all providers expect open seminars (presence) to decline in the future, also due to social requirements (climate change). This is another reason why training service providers’ own seminar houses and training centers will no longer be viable in the future.

There will be more and more remote events and training sessions in the future. The pandemic has led to profound changes here. A “back to normal” is not to be expected.

Experts assume that even after the pandemic, a large number of employees will continue to work from home permanently.

In order to reach this group of participants, digital elements will continue to gain acceptance at an accelerated pace.
According to most respondents, face-to-face seminars are always supplemented by hybrid participation options and always by blended learning components.

There will still be major changes to customer-internal workshops / seminars / training courses. In future, it is expected that this type of training will no longer be carried out in person, but usually in the form of video conferencing / remote training.

Who are the winners and who are the losers?

The opinion of the vast majority is that the pandemic and the positive experiences, some of which have been made digitally, are proving to be a disruptive factor for traditional conference and seminar formats. This will greatly accelerate the transformation in this area.

More than 84% of respondents believe that digitalization accelerated by the pandemic will lead to a market shakeout in continuing education.

Companies that cannot accomplish this transformation quickly enough will be the losers.

Although many companies have already had to give up during the crisis, 3/4 of those surveyed still believe that many more companies will follow.

Over 76% of survey participants are convinced that many training service providers will not survive the situation economically.

Almost all of the experts surveyed assume that those continuing education providers who have quickly and flexibly converted their offerings to digital formats will emerge as “winners” from this transformation.

You can download the complete results of the survey here free of charge.