The Covid-19 pandemic has impacted all the sectors of society, most importantly, the educational institutions. Schools and colleges are closed in most parts of the country and the government has been encouraging online learning as a method to smoothly continue the education of all students. High-end schools and colleges have managed to conduct this transition from offline to online learning very efficiently. However, for many schools and colleges in our country, this still remains a herculean task.
The challenges of online learning are multifaceted. It’s time for the people to understand all the aspects of this new educational change; the good, the bad and the ugly.
The Good
Online learning helps students go beyond the content taught in class, and help access content on all global platforms and learn the niche of the field they are pursuing. This helps students learn at their own pace, time and schedule. Students can learn from the comfort of their homes, and hence no travel issues are faced.
Students also gain access to recorded lectures, which helps them clear their doubts, as they can always re-watch the videos whenever they want. For some others, who find learning in a large classroom intimidating, this helps them to learn in a relaxed manner. However, when online learning goes from being optional to being the standard form all throughout the nation, which is when it becomes a problem.
The bad
For students reading this article, answer this question. How many of you all keep your videos on during the lectures? I am certain that the numbers will be really less. This is one of the major obstacles faced during online learning. No face to face interaction,
The teacher finds it very hard to conduct their lectures, if they are not able to interact and talk to the students. Sometimes, teachers struggle with the technical aspects of online teaching and are not able to teach as well as they could have, if lectures were taking place in the institution itself. The students’ attention span is limited, and they can’t focus for hours on the laptop/phone, listening to the teachers.
Also the fun aspect of education i.e. educational field trips, experiments, interaction with friends, canteen and lunch breaks and basically all school memories cannot be experienced with online learning. Hence, this inhibits the holistic and overall development of the child, and limits the creativity and imagination of the students.
The Ugly
Students have to connect with the teachers through electric devices i.e. phones and laptops. However, this poses as a problem in rural areas where many people don’t own any devices as such.
While India enjoys a wide geographic and cultural diversity, it also suffers from a huge socio-economic divide. Only a small part of the Indian population has access to online education right now. Interrupted power supply, weak or non-existent internet connectivity, and unaffordability to buy necessary devices are major concerns.
That is not all. With limitations of livelihood in a family, the first ones to receive a blow are often girls. In a recent survey of 733 students studying in government schools in Bihar, only 28% of the girls had smartphones in their homes, in contrast to 36% of the boys. These smartphones almost always belonged to male adults, often being lesser accessible to girls than boys, and half of these families could not afford internet data packages.
Hence, immediate measures should be taken to ensure that online learning can be accessed by every single student to ensure that the pandemic does not disrupt the education of the youth.
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