There is virtually no industry in the world that has not faced a considerable setback in the pandemic situation in the past year and a half. Technology has not yet reached a state where online remote work can imitate the efficiency of the actual, on-spot work.

The field of education is not any different. The concept of online classes has been present for a long time now but it has seen a drastic surge in the last year, along with other online ways of working. Nearly every educational institution has shifted to online teaching and examination, with the reasonable exception of fields like medicine.

The system, however, has received a lot of heat from everyone, including the students, the teachers as well as parents. They all have good reasons for that, as online classes have proven themselves to be extremely draining and yielding very little results.

Researchers have suggested that Zoom fatigue is real. Staring at a screen whilst engaging in a conversation for an extended period is draining, and 6-8 hours of online classes daily naturally have severe physiological as well as psychological consequences for both the teachers and the students. Added to this are the very frequent technical faults, voice or video issues and other such problems that increase the overall irritation of the experience.

It would all have still been somewhat worth the trouble if the classes were good at their job. No one is oblivious to the fact that the quality of education has dropped down considerably in the online regime. In the actual classroom, it is easier to both pay attention for the student and track who’s not paying attention for the teacher, which is not the case with online classes. One can simply log into the class and go with the day’s business, completely ignoring anything that is being said. Even for the students attending the class diligently, it is very difficult to grasp many crucial concepts due to the aforementioned issues.

Online exams too are no serious way of assessing student performance. An overwhelming majority uses unfair means, which also automatically disqualifies the results of the students who don’t. Added to this is the frequent cancellation of school and college-level exams, including the recent cancellation of the 12th board exams of CBSE, completely undermining any value that the degrees possess.

New admissions into colleges have also faced problems. A lot of the well-established criteria for college admissions are impossible to keep up with anymore. The merit lists based on marks obtained in the school are practically useless now, and it is difficult to take entrance exams. Speaking of entrance exams, students preparing for major entrance exams like CLAT, NEET, JEE etc. are in a constant state of anxiety as the dates and criteria of the exams keep on changing.

There have been various attempts to improve the quality and experience of online classes, and some have borne fruit. But largely speaking, they still can’t replace on-campus teaching. We can only hope that the pandemic ends soon and the state of affairs return to normal.

Aishwarya Says:

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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