Pros and Cons of Current Education System
The COVID-19 has resulted in schools shut all across the world. Globally, over 1.2 billion children are out of the classroom. As a result, education has changed dramatically, with the distinctive rise of e-learning, whereby teaching is undertaken remotely and on digital platforms. Due to the current pandemic, the idea of online teaching has been widespread. From middle school to colleges and not limited to that, even while those who are working from home are conducting meetings and work regarding their projects online only. Bringing in the idea of working online is needed to be highlighted as well because what children learn is what they see their elders or parents do. With this sudden shift away from the classroom in many parts of the globe, some are wondering whether the adoption of online learning will continue to persist post-pandemic, and how such a shift would impact the worldwide education market. So it leads us to think whether if this sort of education has any merits or demerits. The detailed study and discussion can be seen as follows:
Pros of Current Education System:
• It has changed the way of teaching. It enables teachers to reach out to students more efficiently and effectively through chat groups, video meetings, voting, and also document sharing, especially during this pandemic. Students also find it is easier to communicate. The traditional offline learning and e-learning can go hand by hand
• Some research shows that on average, students retain 25–60% more material when learning online compared to only 8–10% in a classroom. This is mostly due to the students being able to learn faster online; e-learning requires 40–60% less time than in a traditional classroom setting because students can learn at their own pace, going back and re-reading, skipping, or accelerating through concepts as they choose.
• The online classes, whatever the enabling technology, are only as good as the teachers and the ability of the students to grasp the new teaching technique. One of the teachers felt students are actually more responsive and active in online classrooms, compared to when they are in physical ones. This could be because this is a new concept and they are excited to explore it with the teachers. They also don’t get distracted by their classmates, which frequently happens in a regular class.
• Most schools are sorting out the timetable according to subject weightage, spread across the entire week. They are also ensuring that everything starting from attendance to giving assignments to students is done in a similar manner as their regular classroom so students don’t have to struggle to cope up.
Students who miss classes are contacted instantly through WhatsApp and proper reasons are taken. Schools are constantly sending out circulars and SMS, conducting parent orientation and checking mechanisms where the senior teachers are reviewing classes and gathering feedback to improve them in the future.
• At BYJU’S, they received an overwhelming response from the student community, with over six million new students accessing the app in March alone. Earlier, students used to spend 2–3 days per week on the platform, but because of the lockdown, they are using the platform on a daily basis. There is a whopping 200 percent surge in the overall engagement on the app. This shows that with schools still shut and other learning sources being unavailable, digital adoption has increased. There is a big behavioral shift in the parents’ mindset towards learning online, as they witness their kids benefiting from it, and seen Ed-Tech serve as an enabler in their growth.
• Discussions during video sessions, interactive online games like Kahoot, screen sharing, tests conducted through customized portals and homework submission platforms, are some of the tools employed in favor of a seamless learning experience. While teachers adapt and evolve their methodology to the online world, parents must continue to be supportive to help pull out all stops.
Cons of Current Education System:
• There are teachers and schools putting extra effort to engage students in classes by revamping timetables, shifting discussions online, taking feedback from parents, and monitoring students constantly. While there are some who are doing the bare minimum and using WhatsApp to stay connected with students. Some schools are trying out tools like SeeSaw, Google Suite, and YouTube videos to make online classes as engaging as offline ones. But there are also those that are failing miserably at this shift.
• While some believe that the unplanned and rapid move to online learning — with no training, insufficient bandwidth, and little preparation — will result in a poor user experience that is unconducive to sustained growth, others believe that a new hybrid model of education will emerge, with significant benefits.
• There are, however, challenges to overcome. Some students without reliable internet access and/or technology struggle to participate in digital learning; this gap is seen across the country and between income brackets within India.
• The effectiveness of online learning varies amongst age groups. The general consensus on children, especially younger ones, is that a structured environment is required because kids are more easily distracted. To get the full benefit of online learning, there needs to be a concerted effort to provide this structure and go beyond replicating a physical class/lecture through video capabilities, instead, using a range of collaboration tools and engagement methods that promote “inclusion, personalization, and intelligence”.
• Online class is a fairly new concept and children are pretty excited initially to be part of it. The virtual classes via Zoom are being conducted smoothly. There are some drawbacks such as the lack of a platform to submit assignments. Students are required to write the assignments, take a picture of it and email, which gets tough for the child as well as the teacher.
• The teachers send photos, often unclear ones, of notes in a WhatsApp group and expect the parents to note it down on behalf of the children. In today’s time, when both parents are working, it is difficult to do the tasks given by the schools. This shows how the school fails to connect with the child.
• Considering that theirs is a generation heavily dependent on gadgets, getting them to use the devices is not an issue but getting them to use it judiciously and in a manner that doesn’t drain them completely, requires a lot of planning and monitoring both by parents and teachers.
• Few schools have moved from Zoom to a TCL product which isn’t very interactive or easy to use. It only allows the teachers to record videos and uploads them on the platform; the students can connect with the teachers only via chat. There’s no one-on-one communication happening.
• Teachers do find the absence of a board a disadvantage and network connectivity a constant problem. They are kind of making do with the virtual whiteboard on Zoom.
• There are other concerns too. For example, our education system still expects children to write exams. It’s difficult to monitor actual writing in a virtual mode: they might get good at typing, but getting them to readjust to offline mode might be a challenge too.
• Too much screen time can be perilous for health. Prolonged online sessions can be overwhelming and may lead to problems related to vision, body posture, and sleep disorder.
• Although kids are widely held to be more tech-savvy than adults, there is always the exception. Assessment over a digital platform vastly varies from the physical assessment.
• Indian students are not trained to be taught online. Many don’t own a smartphone, especially those from economically poor backgrounds. Buying an Internet pack is a common hassle. Moreover, these students often struggle to get a proper Internet connection. Even teachers are not used to teaching online. They are trained to teach in classrooms using the blackboard. Teaching on a mobile phone gets very difficult as how to hold the phone, and it becomes a problem to concentrate on the topic they are trying to teach.
• This “forced” online learning has its issues! While learning still goes on, it does not take into account the learning, or for that matter the teaching styles/personality that takes place in the face to face classroom. There are technological options, but they are not the same as the face to face, and students with dated technology may find it difficult to keep up.
• It affects much especially in terms of time and hands-on activities in the part of the students. Online classes don’t support all the instruction to be given by the teachers because there are varied learners. Out of these varied learners, most of the learners want to learn by doing with the guidance and instruction of teachers. They are not totally confident to perform alone following what is in the video or audio, they prefer actual simulation.
There are some studies on remote learning suggesting that grades tend to be a little lower from students who learn remotely but clearly it is hard to control variables here. It probably depends on whether the parents are quarantined, the age and motivation of the child, and a host of factors. One would be surprised if, overall, student’s learning wasn’t impacted at least to some extent. It is clear that this pandemic has utterly disrupted an education system that many asserts were already losing its relevance. In his book, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, scholar Yuval Noah Harari outlines how schools continue to focus on traditional academic skills and rote learning, rather than on skills such as critical thinking and adaptability, which will be more important for success in the future. Could the move to online learning be the catalyst to create a new, more effective method of educating students? While some worry that the hasty nature of the transition to online may have hindered this goal, others plan to make e-learning part of their ‘new normal’ after experiencing the benefits first-hand.