Changing Education: During the Pandemic
About: During the Pandemic
The Series, During the Pandemic, will be covering multiple dimensions of change in society and our lives brought by COVID-19. The pandemic of COVID-19 has impacted all of us in some way or another. From the world’s largest social and economical lockdown to thousands of people died, millions went hungry for days & nights to the capitalism of mask for elites, the digital gap between rich and poor to a series of natural disaster, a social distancing between all of us to elections and protests, all of these are happening during the pandemic of COVID-19. Sadly, it is still ongoing and the long-term effects of it have started appearing more clearly than before. The long-term effects can also be considered as an evaluation of measures that were taken by several heads of the nation to minimize the effects of COVID-19. To better understand how the future will shape and is shaping in the post COVID era, the series covers changes that happened in our life and society during COVID.
Education is one of the most important aspects of human society and personal life. Education is related to the youth who builds the future. The personal life of any individual is very much impacted by his/her education institute, teachers and friends. COVID has impacted education institutes badly. Governments as a precautionary step closed all the academic institutes without much discussing the alternatives of education. As of March, 1.6 billion children and youth were out of school in 161 countries. This is close to 80% of the world’s enrolled students.
The education activities can’t hold on pause for long, classes started online and already existing software become tools of modern online education. In India, Zoom.us started being popularly used by schools to take classes, which is originally designed for corporates meetings. Regional companies also started emerging solving local problems in a much innovative way. Already existing ed-tech industry got everybody’s attention. Money started flowing in this sector of IT companies/ startups.
Changing Education: Push Towards Edutech
In contrast to other industries, the education industry keeps on growing even after most nations imposed lockdown and school were closed in the majority part of the world. Definitely the growth is not evenly distributed, it's very central and monopolized. Edtech companies are able to crack the best deal with tutors of equal brand values. India, which had imposed a stringent lockdown during the initial days, badly impacted the economy, has reported 3000+ jobs in the ed-tech companies in the last 3 months. Many new companies have also emerged and also attracted foreign investment in the sector. Globally, an investment of $18.66 billion was made in the sector involving investors such as Facebook, Matrix Partners, and GGV Capital.
The common offering in most of these companies is a platform for taking online classes in an organized manner. Some companies introduced a new way of learning that doesn’t require a teacher to take classes. But the demand for the product has created a billion-dollar market even though the innovation is limited.
Problems in the New Concept
Seeking the current situation and condition, online education seems to be the best alternative for popular opinion. Can the modern concept replace the conventional education system? The answer to this depends on how we see ourselves as a community in the future. Certainly, the new concept has some issues which are listed here.
- Digital Asset: Online education requires a mobile, laptop, or notepad. An asset becomes necessary to access education, which costs a minimum of $100 — $150 for any family. This cost is enough to keep the lowest 20%-25% poor children inaccessible of education. This additional cost has impacted the poor families badly, even lead to selling their assets and spending hardly saved money. This may also lead to permanent dropout especially in the poor region.
- Screen Time: For students who have access to digital devices, overuse has become a problem. Electronic devices have now become the only point of engagement for children and youth. The psychological effects of overage at an early age are still being studied. But it is definitely affecting us physically, more to eyes and back.
- Engagement: Social Engagement is a very crucial part of learning. A child at any age learns much from its surroundings than a lecture or a story. Disengagement with peers many also result in a lack of social skills.
The transition from a regular school to an online school was neither planned nor it happened smoothly. The teachers and school were not prepared to accommodate the complete imposition of electronic devices for regular classes. It brought a challenging time for every teacher since they were the first to manage an e-crowd.
(The below image shows how a teacher find a creative and homemade solution to teach her students, as most don’t have assets to organize proper online classes in India)
Examinations: Evaluating the new system
The first wave of COVID started around Jan-March in most countries. This is the month of evaluation and promotion in secondary & senior secondary schools in many countries. In India, where examinations are conducted in March-end happened to be in the mid of lockdown. Schoool later promoted the students without exams, but board exams (Secondary & Senior Secondary) exams were organized. The colleges were asked to conduct exams for graduating students. Many universities and colleges organized online exams, there were no mechanisms to stop students from copying or searching from notes. Very few universities acted strictly and organized offline exams with some safety norms.
Competitive exams (conducted for Jobs) and entrance exams(conducted for college entry) were conducted offline in India. Against the wish of thousands of students, the government conducted these examinations. Convenience to these exams centers cost middle and poor class much more than rich students who have their personal vehicles to travel. Poors as always suffered more and were exposed to open. Clearly, the virus didn’t allow time for the governments to make clear policies on examination. And exams turn out to more evaluating the new system rather than evaluating the students.
Between all this mess, there are few startups that came up with the digital solution of organizing online exams, but the adaptation of such examination can’t ensure equal opportunity to all students. Internet access in all the regions is not good which adds up to the continuous supply of electricity.
Cases from India & Pakistan
Zahra Khan, a student of Media Studies at National University of Modern Languages(Islamabad) shares her views and experience in a telephonic interview, “This pandemic brought a huge change for a developing country like Pakistan. There wasn’t a proactive approach, but, things were getting better with time. As educational institutes were closed, my ongoing semester extended for two months ending in July rather than in May. There was no smoothly running Learning Management System with which, some students coped but, not those who had internet connectivity issues. The workload was way more but, in the end, teachers understood the elevated levels of students’ anxiety and managed with us in our online exams to an extent.”
Rishikesh Kumar, a final year student at Chanakya National Law University, Patna, also shared his experience about the changes pandemic brought in his career. “Graduating in mid of a pandemic is hard. You just have your degree, which you much waited for, but neither a job nor a clear future. Our industry has the worst effect. Courts have started to operate online but not accessible to everybody, the justice system has stuck. Unemployment is at the peak and the graduating batch is suffering the most. Many companies revoked offered, others asked to join at Salary cut and even delayed joining to next year and we have no negotiating power. The only hope is the examination for Judicial Services will not be much delayed.”
Students around the world have suffered from COVID in many different ways. It's really tough for governments to open school and colleges normal with all social distancing norms, Spain tried it but seems like they have failed badly. As time grows, more and better alternatives to accessible learning options will keep on coming. And all it needs is a vaccine to get back on the old track. Returning students to the schools will be another interesting case study to understand the behavior changes brought by the pandemic in the youth.
