The HSC Hub will have a range of curriculum and support materials available online for students. This will include new material from NSW Education, as well as existing resources.
The HSC Hub will also provide centralised support for students, providing them with a quick and easy point of reference for HSC related questions.
HSC students will be able to access the online platform from Week 10 of Term 2, just before the start of the NSW school holidays.
During the school holidays, a range of high-quality, on-demand support modules will be made available to students.
NSW Education will ensure that all HSC students have access to the hub, so no student is disadvantaged. This will include supplying some students with devices and dongles or allowing students in remote areas access to school facilities to get them online.
The Minister for Education and Early Childhood Learning stated that HSC students across the state receive incredible support from their schools and teachers. She said, “We have asked our teachers and principals what else they need to support their HSC students and one of the results is this new hub.”
The growing love for tech in a pandemic
A recent survey by the global marketing agency Dentsu Aegis Network shows that Australians and other people across the world have entered a new period of ‘tech-love’ during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The survey ran between March-April 2020 – the peak of the pandemic around the globe – and analysed the views of 32,000 people across 22 markets in terms of people’s relationship with technology, the knock-on effect on their well-being, as well as their connection with friends and family. As part of this study, 1,022 people from Australia were surveyed.
The major findings of the study included:
- 61 per cent believe tech is having a positive impact on their overall health and wellbeing
- Australians are optimistic about how technology can be used to solve societal challenges.
- 60 per cent of people expect businesses to be using technology for the greater good
- There are still some concerns over the negative impacts of tech: over half (57 per cent) of people globally believe the pace of change is too fast; 49 per cent of Australians believe technology has created a greater divide between the rich and poor.
- Compared to China and Brazil, Australians are not as confident that emerging technologies, such as robotics and AI, will create career opportunities locally in the next decade.
Australians have placed significant importance on their health and wellbeing, saying that their physical (64 per cent) and mental (63 per cent) health, as well as their relationships with family and friends (58 per cent), is more important than financial stability (38 per cent).
Australia was the second-highest-ranking country in the study when ranking their mental health as a top priority, surpassed marginally by Brazil.
Opportunities for businesses
In Australia, 60 per cent of people are expecting organisations to use technology in a way that has a wider positive impact on the community. This is a sentiment felt across the world, with people in China having the highest expectations globally (84 per cent).
The challenge for businesses today is understanding how consumer behaviour will endure beyond the immediate demands of the crisis and what might fall away over time.
As the nation moves further into recovery, businesses need to be cognizant of how their customers may have changed during COVID-19 and understand how technology is enabling or disabling their brand experience.
To succeed in Australia’s changing landscape, it is critical for businesses to humanise technology and ensure its meeting people’s desires and needs right now.
Business leaders must find a balance between developing products and marketing campaigns that meet a human need, while also ensuring they invest in functional capabilities to support gaps and opportunities in the market, such as online learning and e-commerce.