The COVID-19 pandemic has made mankind rethink travel, trade and globalization. Airspaces closed and video (Zoom, Microsoft teams) conferences and meetings became practical and cost-effective alternatives. Home office became the norm for many and education from primary schools to universities went online. We have termed this movement, the provision of education online as Teleeducation. The provision of some health care services went on line too, increasingly known as Telehealth (1). The arrival of MRNa vaccines brought renewed hope. The messages were, get your jabs and get your life back. Many people who could access vaccines got their jabs and when COVID passports were introduced, they got theirs and resumed travel, with no testing, no masks and no fear of contracting COVID-19 (2).

Summer in Europe brought relief as infections in Europe and the northern hemisphere fell (3), while at the same time the virus surged in the southern hemisphere. International travel re-opened and countries like Denmark declared COVID-19 as being over and the UK celebrated Freedom Day (3). In Oct–Nov 2021 infections started rising, in Austria, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, United Kingdom, Switzerland and later France, Italy and Portugal (3). The discovery of the Omicron variant in November 2021 surprised the world once again. Many Countries closed borders and Netherlands and Austria went into new lock downs. Hospitals in Germany exceeded capacity and similar European Countries faced tough challenges of triaging care at times (4). The short-term sense of security brought about by the vaccines somewhat got eroded by the emergence of delta and omicron variants (5). Could this be a call for caution for the rest of the world to defer celebrating the end of the pandemic, to tread carefully and to keep watch on variant emergences and seasonal cycles?

Education has been affected by the pandemic and should not be postponed further. Besides economies, health and trade, education has been affected by the pandemic too. Education is the key to economic and social freedom, personal and professional development particularly in LMIC. Many students interrupted or postponed their education in 2020 and 2021. In a pandemic setting, many people get sick including students. The ability to continue learning while sick and or in quarantine, is an opportunity that became strengthened during the pandemic and could be capitalized on.

The pandemic has indeed forced us to change our ways of thinking and doing things. In our view, a rethink in educational approaches is needed too. Pandemics are forecasted to become more frequent. Students the world over, need not interrupt or defer studies in pandemic contexts. The internet of things has brought the world closer than we ever imagined. Students can interact with teachers and other students all over the world from within the comfort of their own homes (7) or own home universities, without the need to travel-teleeducation. See Figure 1.

These initiatives would be in line with initiatives like decolonising global health, which are striving to redistribute funding, knowledge, authority, leadership and decision-making power among communities. Similarly, these initiatives could aid in reducing brain drain and ultimately strengthen health and educational institutions in LMICs (8, 9).