On 5th of January 2020 outbreak of virus was reported in Wuhan by WHO, and on 12th of January China publicly revealed the genetic sequence of COVID-19. Soon on 13th of January first case of Covid-19 was reported outside China, in Thailand. It didn’t take much time for virus to come to India. On 30th January 2020 India confirmed its first COVID-19 case in Kerala. The numbers slowly and steadily increasing day by day. And on 24th of March 2020 the Government of India declared lockdown in India. Youths weren’t yet introduced to online education, but the extensions of lockdown made authorities and students realise that Covid-19 is planning to overstay its welcome and one must continue its basic necessity. That’s when one realised of Online Education.
During the time when virus began to spread or came to India, I was in my third year of Bachelors, commonly referred as batch that suffered the most, the batch of 2019-2020. It was after my second paper of final exam when the Government of India declared lockdown. Rest of the papers were conducted online in the month of October 2020. A gap of 7 months between papers. But that wasn’t my first experience of online education, my first experience were my online classes for my further studies. They were pretty decent, I remember paying attention, interacting, trying to note stuff. It had to be fun and interesting as it were my first online lecture. But we all know the linear fall between the first and the last page’s handwriting on the book.
My first experience of Online Classes did start from June due to my further studies, but they all were all revision lectures. One might argue whether they were really my first experience of online education. My first lectures of Online Education started it April 2021 and those were my LL.B lectures. Even though my lectures started in April 2021 I has heard a lot about online education from my friends whose colleges were started or appeared for exams. So was kind of excited about them and had exactly in mind what to do and what not to do and how to do. And so far, having 3 months of first-hand experience and almost 10 months of second-hand experience of online education let’s jump to them.
There are a lot of perks of online education for students that one can ghost teachers easily and technological glitch can be literally excuse for everything, for example not doing an assignment or nor answering questions or bunking lectures or not participating or even paying attention.
Technical glitch is as good an excuse as forgetting something at home, truly a better one. One can also multi- task while attending a lecture, a most common is socialising on Instagram. It is something which were hardly possible in offline lectures. One is so comfortable with this online approach that now they want that offline colleges never start and even if it starts it will be difficult to go back to offline life. Students have also shown growth in their terminal performance it is a lot more difficult to examine who has better intellect. One reason for the growth can be that students are loving the approach of online education, as it has shown much higher attendance as compared to offline schools or colleges. Is these seriously where it is heading? These are perks for student but it’s a mocking scenario for Indian Education.
Online Education is completely new door that opened for us in due to Covid-19. It is a step forward towards technology and in future one might experience this digital world permanently. But is this the way we want to start “A weaker generation”? No one is at fault here from our childhood we have been taught root learning and how marks are so important. Whether it is a school child, or an MBA graduate we all know the importance of marks in Indian education system. Despite knowing and being repeated by many intellects that marks doesn’t matter we still push ourselves or our loved ones for that extra mark they can gain. That is all Indian Education is now. But with this scenario it’s a high time we open our eyes and promote what one actually uses in their profession or one that is helpful.
Education and knowledge are definitely important but the inclination towards high marks or root learning, that is the approach one must change. And this situation is a good place from where we start the change we need. For example, instead of giving tests and exams one can write a paper or assignment and present for the same, updating the syllabus to today’s time, situational based question rather than mugging up and writing on papers. Mumbai University did recently try the assignment approach but lack in execution the effort did not succeed.
There are definitely a lot more advantages to online education but one we are doing now is not heading to right path. Covid-19 is fearful, but it has given us a lesson that world will never wait for one. And technology has played a most important part in this role. Not education but a lot of things have shifted to online. And its time now we adapt the change and update the laws and custom to change.
I have always been against Glorifying Over Work and therefore, in the year 2021, I have decided to launch this campaign “Balancing Life”and talk about this wrong practice, that we have been following since last few years. I will be talking to and interviewing around 1 lakh people in the coming 2021 and publish their interview regarding their opinion on glamourising Over Work.
If you are interested in participating in the same, do let me know.
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We are also running a series Inspirational Women from January 2021 to March 31,2021, featuring around 1000 stories about Indian Women, who changed the world. #choosetochallenge