Our country though not had a bad history for pandemics, but India could not be an anomaly to the global pandemic of Covid 19. Its origins being in one of our neighbouring country, we could not have been an exception to this tragedy. Entire world- western or eastern is inundated in the gruesome tyranny of nature affecting social, cultural, economic and political scenarios of the world. Though every loss is amendable, but there is a mislaying in the plot which can’t be reclaimed. The education system all over the world has been impacted to such a level, where the revival seems a bit impractical. Man in his social life is so active in finding alternatives to his accustomed routine, that finding a replacement for a principal process of education didn’t seemed to be a tedious job. The emergence of online learning was paradigmatic to the unfolding of global pandemic but for western countries this was not at all a new approach to the practice of education contrasting India. Online education in India, post Covid 19 outbreak was not an intellectual decision, rather an imitation to the rest of the world resolutions, but very pathetic to the Indian education system, who took this decision without detailing there arrangements. The appearance of when India was still commemorating her independence. Though online learning culture is burgeoningavailed of high speedinternet and developing countries like India do not hold back to these developments.
Source: Technavio report
With the outbreak of Covid 19, authentic classroom based education can’t be continued, thus the standards for virtual classrooms have risen, to keep the didactic nature of education alive.
Source: University Affairs Magazine
The emergence of online learning was paradigmatic to the unfolding of global pandemic but for western countries this was not at all a new approach to the practice of education contrasting India. Online education in India, post Covid 19 outbreak was not an intellectual decision, rather an imitation to the rest of the world resolutions, but very pathetic to the Indian education system, who took this decision without detailing there arrangements.
Issues And Challenges: India has been home to conventional education like Madrasa, Maktabas and Gurusfrom ancient times which with British colonisation advanced to Schools, colleges and universities but the conception of virtual classroom is very new to Indian culture and accepting a new culture out of sudden is not easy. Education being didactic in nature can’t be monologues; it needs to have dialogue between the teacher and the student, which is hindered by the process of online learning. Many researches have proven that classroom teaching is better than virtual classrooms because of various reasons like
• Collaborative learning
Classroom learning avails children with the positive learning environment, which helps a child to create awareness about his environment, thus enhances his learning capabilities.
• Critical Thinking
Classroom environment is a stimulus to child’s critical thinking through varies physical and mental activities.
• Social Development
The traditional classrooms help in building social behaviours of a child, as a child has to grow within a community of other children which develop his social interaction skills.
• Cognitive Development
Interactions in classroom domain help children improve their cognitive skills like reasoning, remembering and thinking. The advents of online learning implies to be a technological development-being pressing priority of the time, but as there are contrapositions to every story so are here. India being a developing country does not have technological developments as west and it is very evident that India is somewhere still lacking in providing 100% classroom education to its citizens, thus a sudden switch in the mode of education is a matter of concern for authorities. According to the Educational Statistics report released by MHRD in 2018, the overall literacy rate in India is 69.1 % and the overall literacy rate for males a is 78.8 % and for females is 59.3%. This statistics evidently shows how backward India is in its education sector, which in turn can prove the inability of online learning in India.
The major obstacles to e-learning in India is the negative response of both teacher and student faternity to this new technological initiative. Both teachers and students are indulgent in the two fold process of learning and teaching. Not only students and teachers but parents are also showing a linient response to this enterprise. Also the network glitch in some conflict areas of India like Jammu and Kashmir and Assam is a major obstacle.
Scope of improvement : Every deteorating initiative has a scope of improvemnents, so are here in the field on Indian Online learning Initiative. Though many schemes have been launched to assist both children and teachers in the field of e-learning like;
• SWAYAM
• NDLI
• NPTEL
• e-PG Patshala
• Virtual labs etc.
All these schemes were lanched to assist students in their e-learning, but very unfortunately very few people are aware of these schemes. Intitiatves schould be taken to inform students about these schemes like e-awareness programmesb etc. Government should provide free data voichers to students to ensure smooth education. Network should me made effective and teachers should be availed with high technical devicves like tabs and stylus pens. Though India is somewhere lacking in perfectioning the e-learning procedure but inorrder to save our future the wand of magic lies in the citizens of india to extend an positive approach to the all the intiatives of government.
( The author is a a bachelor’s student in English literature from Pulwama district. Views are her own)