LEC052024. Jesly Sebastian. Online learning-teaching experience in India: The past, present and future.
Online learning-teaching experience in India: The past, present and future
Covid-19 has transformed our lives in several ways. It has affected both our individual lives and life as a society. The challenges the Indian education system encountered during the pandemic is diverse. Many children were unable to attend classes because of inadequate facilities. Even when online education is proposed as the future norm it is not the ideal system for children in India, especially at school levels. The shift from face-to-face learning to online mode was a rapid one which happened in a matter of a few months. Such a sudden change had variable effects on different sections of the society namely the teaching-learning community of the country.
The teachers who were not equipped for such a change stressed out during the initial months. During the years before the pandemic, online learning platforms were used in India for acquiring additional skills and self-learning in higher education institutions. The teachers at school levels who lacked digital skills had major problems in dealing with children online. Many teachers found it difficult and stressful to make the classes interesting for students. The ease of access, assessment and personalized care that they were able to provide in the face-to-face learning environment was suddenly lost. Thus the amount of syllabus that could be covered within a fixed time decreased.
The existing syllabi when the learning mode changed were better compatible with face-to-face learning. This has led to the last-minute cutting down of portions from many syllabi across the country. This is only a temporary solution that could have grave effects on the quality of education in the coming years. Many concepts that are the basic foundation for higher classes are removed which might become a difficulty for the learners in future. The higher education levels, especially the college, university levels face a different set of problems. The online mode has limited their access to resources like the library that play an essential role in these education systems. Online reading fails to be an effective alternative as it tends to further increase the already extended screen-time.
The amount of time spent by students in front of screens is still a concern of many parents. Long sessions in front of the screen make it difficult to concentrate in classes. In a national survey conducted by LocalCircles, a social media and community platform, which received 8,287 responses from 204 districts of the country; about 49 per cent of participants said online classes should be conducted but limited to two hours per day while 31 per cent parents said that on online classes should be banned. Many parents especially from the economically weaker sections found difficulty in facilitating devices for each of their children to attend online classes. This has made online learning inaccessible for children from economically weak backgrounds. The clashing schedules among siblings had to be solved by making multiple devices available for them along with good internet connectivity which proved to be difficult for many.
As ETGovernment reported: "From coping with basic issues like internet connectivity and India’s notoriously undependable power supply to more issues like e-tests and e-exams, students have come under tremendous stress. Final year students are the worst affected." Many other reports too pointed out connectivity and signal issues as the most prevailing problems faced by students while attending online classes. The Digital in India report published in May 2020 by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) says that mobile phones continue to remain the device of choice for accessing the internet in both urban and rural parts of the country. But in a country like India with uneven distribution of such facilities and bandwidths varying from 2G to 4G, it is difficult to establish online connectivity efficiently. Such problems are very common among students from rural areas of the country.
For many children in rural India, schools were a place of relief from the crowded and tiny rooms in their home and the struggle to have adequate daily meals. With the shift to online learning, they have lost such facilities along with the classes, either due to the lack of digital devices or unstable internet connectivity. Another section of learners who were directly affected by the shift to online learning is differently-abled or physically challenged students. Online learning sometimes seems to fail in meeting their requirements. It is challenging for them to attend classes online. But the submission of class-works and assignments tend to be more challenging for them. Even though time concessions are given to them as a solution, it can't be an effective method in the long-term. Special care and facilities are to be made available to curb many such diverse issues arising in the online teaching-learning experience.
Even though the teachers and learners have attained some kind of stability and understanding regarding the digitalization of education over these months after the pandemic outbreak; there are still many issues that are to be addressed and resolved in our country. The efficiency of online learning should be enhanced and equal opportunity and access are to be ensured. additional care should be ensured to make the process effective for the differently-abled students. And the pedagogy should be enhanced further with the help of teacher-friendly, digital tools. If such improvements could be brought; digital learning can go hand-in-hand with face-to-face learning in our country in the future.
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