Learning in times of Corona
‘Welcome to the adventure!’
As an educator, the COVID pandemic has been the most challenging and adventurous time. A lot of my colleagues did not imagine in their wildest dreams that they would ever teach students through phones and tablets. They always saw virtual, remote, blended, flipped or any form of tech-based learning as something in the far future, especially when it comes to the low-income population they work with.
Little did we know that a global pandemic was around the corner, tossing and turning our world upside down, shaking us from our slumber sleep. To every educator, teacher, school leader, innovator, entrepreneur, the time is now, and it is calling us out to be courageous and creative. We must adapt or cease to exist!
Here are some pressing challenges we are facing right now as educators:
Digital Divide
On one hand, a student in South Mumbai is learning through zoom with uninterrupted internet on his iPad Pro, while there are hundreds of students in the same city without a phone or access to the internet, biding their time to go back to the world of learning. This gap in the access of technology, the digital divide, exists between the underprivileged and privileged, poor and wealthy, rural and urban, female and male and able and disabled. While 53.6% of the global population is connected to the internet, only 47% are connected in developing countries and a mere 19.1% in the least developed countries (LDCs)
Gender divide
“I don’t have time to do my homework, Didi. My mother has gone to the village and my brothers use the phone to study online” said 13-year-old Suman when her teacher (Didi) called to check in on her bright and confident student. Suman explained she does not have the time to study because she spends all her time cooking, cleaning and doing household chores.
The story of Suman is the story of many girls and women in the developing and least developed countries. In the developed countries 80% of the total female population have access to the internet and in the least developed countries, the number plummets to cover barely 13.9% of the total female population. We are stuck in a vicious cycle where the existing gender gap exacerbates the digital divide, which in turns amplifies the gender gap.
Psychological Well Being
We don’t need statistics to validate our lived and shared experiences of high stress, anxiety and fear. Research indicates exposure to situations of distress for a prolonged period leads to long term mental health implications. Children are facing a loss of routine social interactions and possibly the loss of loved ones, which can heighten anxiety. We have not equipped children to deal with such intense emotions and in the absence of teachers, who form a major part of their support system. In this situation, their mental well being becomes as important as taking precautions against the virus.
Rise in violence
Schools are not just a space where learning happens, they also provide a safe and happy space for many children. Understanding child abuse in the lockdown is complex. We assume that if children are home; they are safe, but what if the abusers are home too and children have no contact with the outside world? In India, we saw a 50% rise in the calls made to the Child helpline number in the first 11 days of the lockdown. 11 days maybe a short time to jump to any conclusions but historically, we have seen a rise in neglect and abuse during unprecedented times. School closures during the outbreak of Ebola virus disease in West Africa from 2014 to 2016, for example, contributed to spikes in child labour, neglect, sexual abuse and teenage pregnancies. In Sierra Leone, cases of teenage pregnancy more than doubled to 14,000 from before the outbreak.
As a result, we need to ensure the safety of the children and bring learning to them in innovative ways.
The series ‘Learning in times of Corona’ aims to be a space to bring educational solutions together, encourage collaborations and begin conversations. We will profile organisations or their programmes to understand how they are tackling the challenges of the pandemic. The hope here is to learn from each one of them and allow all of us to start a conversation to build a community of like-minded educators.
So let the adventure begin!
Click here for the first article in the series
To read other articles in the Publication — Reimagine Education:
