FRIDAY, APRIL 19, 2024
One of the most often used terms after the pandemic is the term “new normal”. The new normal in education is the increased use of online learning. Online learning is not the next big thing. It is the NOW big thing. The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on education has forced school closures worldwide, early childhood education and care services, universities and colleges. It has been more than a year that school and college students in India are studying from home and attending online classes. With Covid-19 still going around and with talk of a third wave are students ready for yet another year in online mode
The sudden outbreak of a deadly disease called Covid-19 caused by a Corona virus shook the entire world and forced educators to shift to online teaching overnight. It is difficult to predict when these institutions will open again. Online education or the education imparted by using Internet and computers, laptops, tablets and more lately smart phones has been gaining more currency and momentum. What are the likely consequences of this kind of learning in the lives of our children, the teaching community, our educational systems and families? Parents are now balancing working from home with the added responsibility of home schooling their children. The dining table has become the working desk for most homes.
For children, one of the biggest challenges of online learning is the struggle with focusing on the screen for long periods of time. Another challenge is Internet connectivity. Without a consistent internet connection for students or teachers, there can be a lack of continuity in learning for the child. This is detrimental to the education process. If the government continues online education without necessary supportive measures, the prevailing disparity in the virtual world could translate into widening educational inequalities among learners.
With limitations of livelihood in a family, the first ones to receive a blow and be pulled out of the education system is most often the girl child. With the existing digital divide expanding online education will push the digital have-nots to the periphery of the education system, thereby increasing inequity in educational outcomes. The digital divide could become more extreme if educational access is dictated by access to the latest technologies.
Finally education is not just about subject knowledge, but also about developing social skills and sportsmanship among the students, which is built over years. Relying solely on online education may hinder the holistic development of children, and many are bound to underperform later in their professional and personal lives. A number of students have experienced a negative impact to their mental health due to the pandemic.
Like everything else online education has its share of merits and demerits. The major challenge of remote learning is disparity in access – from electricity and Internet connections to devices like computer or smart phones. Access to electricity is crucial for digital education, both for powering devices as well as for connecting to the Internet. There are many challenges encountered during online education. Many teachers, students don’t have online training. The digital divide is evident across class, gender, region or place of residence. The difference is apparent across States too.
When the atmosphere encourages learning, the learning is inevitable. Children learn from anything and everything they see. They learn wherever they are and not only in special learning places. Too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve. The aim of education should be to teach us how to think rather than what to think – rather to improve our minds, so as to enable to think for ourselves, than to load the memory with the thoughts of other men. Learning can only happen when a child is interested.
Our aim should not be to force a child to memorise, but to touch his imagination so as to enthuse fire to his inner most core. Online education has a mountain of problems in India but it can become accessible and inclusive if States are more pro-active. E-education however, can never replace the face to face teaching that happens in schools, as socialisation and life skills cannot be replaced by on-line learning which has become the mantra for the day.
Today, digital learning has emerged as a necessary resource for students and educational institutions all over the world. The traditional talk and chalk method in school and colleges has been slowly changing with more interactive teaching methods in educational institutions which have been increasingly adopting digital solutions. Digital India is not prepared for digital education because of the obvious digital divide in this country. It is clear that this pandemic has utterly disrupted an education system that many assert was already losing its relevance. In the meantime the Directorate of Education (DOE) in Goa has recommended that school sessions for students from class 1 to 12 should continue to be conducted online.
The slow pace of change in academic institutions globally is lamentable, with centuries-old, lecture based approaches to teaching, entrenched institutional biases, and outmoded classrooms. The broadband and laptops have become today the teacher, library and the laboratory. While some plan to make e-learning part of their ‘new normal, many worry that the hasty nature of the transition online may have hindered the goal of creative learning where students are still taught by rote rather than critical thinking.
The biggest challenge for the e-learning industry in India is the lack of technological penetration in rural areas where bulk of our population resides. This is a serious issue that needs to be tackled. Education is going to be digital in the foreseeable future and with the right infrastructure and policies in place, we would be better prepared to handle it.
(The writer is a social scientist and manager of a school)
