The spread of unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic disrupted all human activities and exposed the loopholes in existing systems. Increase in poverty due to unemployment, hunger, unavailability of essentials due to affected supply chain, increase in learning crisis due to longterm shut down of schools, lack of infrastructure to test the people and to cure the infected one etc. are some examples which showed the inequalities existing between people have and have not. Along with this, issues like rising disputes between countries, climate change are also pushing the human life to the edge. Correcting these loopholes and strengthening the system needs structured interventions at all stages.  

Courses in focus  

Education is the key to correcting these issues. However, current educational practices or platforms need customization to address these issues.  

• Learning AI, agriculture, environmental studies, health & hygiene and many other aspects should be made more rigorous to face and prevent challenges. Though we gave importance to these aspects in the pre-COVID situation, the spread of virus catalyzed and emphasized the need. We have to step out of the traditional practices and adopt tools like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Augmented reality (AR), distance learning for process enhancement, and customize the existing courses/add new courses to address the challenges discussed previously.  

• Artificial intelligence (AI) is a central tenet for the 4th industrial revolution. AI can be applied to every sector to enable new possibilities and efficiencies. The applications of AI in our daily lives, business operations, education, health, entertainment, and society as a whole are expanding at a very faster rate. Many existing gaps requires great investment in training human resources to find solutions. Since AI presents profound new possibilities, from autonomous vehicles to automated diagnosis, teaching AI is very much beneficial. Currently, AI has been thought of as a main course or specialization in some countries, more opportunities for learning AI has to be given for appropriate learners. This will result in innovations in the field of health, food, education, business, etc. to make our lives much easier.  

• Increasing population increases the demand for nutritive food. With the traditional practices and the decreasing cultivatable landmass, the production of food and nutrients to all people is very difficult. Along with existing agriculture and food technology-related courses, teaching effective new methods of farming such as hydroponics, aquaponics, multilayer farming is beneficial in increasing the food supply. 

• The spread of the Coronavirus highlighted the drawbacks existing in the healthcare system globally. A limited number of skilled human resources, lack of infrastructure to treat the affected individuals, less scope for research shows the opportunities for development in the field of healthcare. To face challenges like these, the number of skilled medical personnel must be increased, infrastructure has to be provided for research and treatment activities. 

• One of the critical aspects that need to be addressed immediately in the education system is Environmental studies. Increased human interventions resulting in climate change, environmental pollution, rise in global temperature, loss of life forms, etc. The longterm lockdown due to the spread of COVID-19 resulted in pausing/reduced human intervention with the environment. This resulted in many positive changes/improvements in the health of the environment. All types of pollution are decreased to a level which was decades ago. The health of the environment can be maintained at similar, provided increased usage of renewable resources, green energy, reduced usage of plastic, etc. The aspects thought for learners currently should be made more relevant, solution-driven and sustainable methods. 

Conclusion 

As COVID-19 disrupts the normalcy in social and economic contours of the society, the need for agile and responsive skills development becomes more than inevitable. As discussed in the previous sections, the need for data mapping and management-related skills will be in demand mostly driven by the need to strengthen weak systems. Further, courses around supply chain and logistics management would also become important largely in line with experiences related disruption in the supply chain during Covid-19. Apart from the aspects discussed in the above sections, skills and expertise in aspects like Blockchain, Big Data, Cloud, data analytics, voice deployment, Six Sigma (for Quality and Operations Management) etc are beneficial in saving and transforming human lives for better.