Impact of COVID-19 on our education system

The petrifying and grave impact of COVID 19 has shaken the world to its core. While the whole country is under lockdown, people now had to adapt work from home (WFH) system to maintain a continuity of work. All the sectors are still trying to conform to the new challenges that this pandemic has brought, but the sector has faced major problems in the education sector. This crisis has crystalized the dilemma for policymakers over deciding whether to keep schools close or open. To curb the spread, schools were announced to be shut due to which over 91 percent of students have suffered. This was a huge challenge for everyone to try something new and go beyond the traditional chalk and board method. Teaching has now been started online in an unprecedented form without being trialed well. With lots of trial and error, only a few schools could successfully adopt the online methods for teaching. But what about those teachers and students who do not have the resources to keep up with this sudden change in teaching.

Going to school not only bestows knowledge but also helps children to acquire new skills. The school helps a child to prosper and progress with each passing step, be it in the field of sports, extracurricular, or academics. , studies say that the best way of communicating is face to face and for a fact we all know that technology can never take over the impact reality has on us. Parents now had to sign up their children for homeschooling. Even though there are parents who successfully school their children at home but we cannot generalize the same as everybody else. Global homeschooling will surely produce some moments which will be cherished by all forever, but it is unlikely that it will on average replace the learning loss. Universities on the other hand have to bear the same loss, students are asking for waivers of their fees as they are not attending classes. Some of the schools and universities are still asking to pay the full amount wherein it also includes meals and other facilities that currently are not in use. Many parents even signed petitions asking the schools to cut down the fees. Courts have given their jurisdiction for the same, some were in support of schools and universities others against. Subjects that require total practical learning are facing a dead-end right now, even after teaching all the theory, the concrete practical learning is left untouched. Students in their final year had to face major disruption in their last semester which will affect their job placements and they might have to graduate in the times of recession. India in particular is already facing unemployment this may increase the load in the future. Students who were planning to apply abroad now may have to choose for something else as there are chances that there will be a change in the education policy for international students. Today everything seems uncertain and unpredicted all we can do is hope for something good to happen. So many internal assessments and exams were canceled which will affect the overall development of an individual. Education is the most important commodity today. It is expected that there will be a spike in telecommunication in the coming times with online conferences, e-resources, and the possibility for new business models to emerge. After all these unpredictability one thing that we can surely envisage is that the Indian education sector will not only reform in the higher education system but will go through a major transformation. The students who are not that privileged like others will be held back, the government, schools, and the universities are relentlessly trying to come up with a solution. This pandemic has proved to be a catalyst for the education sector to try the untaken methods and techniques which were yet not explored. With a change in time let’s hope for things to get better and it is always said that the fittest always survives. Surviving these crises with new adaptations and methods will help get the industry through with the blue moon that surrounds us, Confucius a famous scholar said ‘ our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fail’ it’s time to rise and try every possible way to reach to where we want us to stand. Just remember one thing, we are all in this together, bad times will fade away soon, till then stay home and stay safe!