THE MASSIVE IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON ENGINEERING EDUCATION
Avirup Gantait
EIE @ NIT RKL(1st Year) || EE @ CGEC || T&P member(CGEC) || Co-lead @GDSC-CGEC || Intern @ TopTrove, IFORTIS || Training @ PWD(WB)
Author : Avirup Gantait
Co-authors : Satya Priyo Poddar, Sudeshna Roy, Antara Das, Partha Pratim Mondal
ABSTRACT : With the outbreak of Covid-pandemic the education system all over the world has come to a halt as there is no sufficient infrastructure to go on the offline class. students face a great problem how to go on their studies as schools and colleges were totally closed to maintain social distance which is essential to escape from such epidemic. Later all to go on study the online class system was introduced by which students can get benefits and can fulfill their education. It is a new way to most of the students as the system was unknown to them. Though they become habituated with the system, there are some problems from the side of the students and teachers. Those who live in the remote village can not get the online facility and they have to face problem. Yet it is a challenge to go on study in schools, colleges, universities through the distant education system.
1.INTRODUCTION :
The current worldwide epidemic has wreaked havoc on one of the most important systems: education. Education is undeniably crucial in contributing to a country’s welfare and an individual’s growth, but it has been jeopardized by the emergence of Covid -19. It has had a huge impact on the lives of millions of kids. There have been a number of severe targets that have had to be met since the lockdown was implemented.
????????????????????????????With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the resulting response from colleges and universities all around the world, engineering students are finding themselves in an unprecedented situation. In addition to stressors related to the engineering curriculum, many residential college students were asked to relocate away from campus, and engage in what, for many students and professors, was a new learning modality: distance learning. At the same time, shelter in place and social distancing requirements changed and, (in many countries) continue to impact a number of nonacademic factors for students, including ability to socialize, ability to engage in romantic relationships, ability to procure food and supplies, ability to exercise and engage in athletics, and ability for students or their providers to remain employed and financially solvent and many other factors. Finally, as COVID-19 lingers, some students have fallen ill, while others faced the prospect of sick family members and deaths in the family. This paper catalogues the incidence of negative life events and disruptions caused by the pandemic on engineering students. The hope is that engineering educators, program administrators, and policy makers can use this data to determine how to best support their diverse student populations both in the immediate future, and during future pandemics, which are expected to occur with increasing frequency.
????????????????????The technology and engineering sectors have been hit extremely hard in this pandemic. The problems and challenges faced by the academia in the pandemic times are the opportunity to better keep up with the rapid humanity development also in terms of physical workspaces replacing or complementing with immersive ones.
???????????????????This focuses on the resulting dramatic changes in engineering education due to the current classical learning process paradigm shift. The brief overview of the problems is presented. These include the legal perspective of Distance learning creating remote workplaces for both student and the university lecturers, increasing the efficiency of distant classes, choosing distant learning means as well as allocating the most problematic aspects, requiring special attention. The letter for the engineering education is teaching the future engineers to operate real hardware installations not available. The partial solution might be introducing Digital Twins of the equipment this way also facilitating the introduction of modern industry 4.0 digital technologies into real life.
“One year into the COVID-19 pandemic, close to half the world’s students are still affected by partial or full school closures, and over 100 million additional children will fall below the minimum proficiency level in reading as a result of the health crisis.?Prioritizing education recovery is crucial to avoid a generational catastrophe as highlighted in a?high-level ministerial meeting?in March 2021.†[UNESCO]
2.Distance Learning challenges:
2.1. Legal Perspective of Distance Learning: The first problem with any change coming is the legal basis. For distant learning there are two problems- the means for content transfer and the content creation.
????????????????????????Neither students, nor the university staff are obliged to have the necessary equipment (computer, internet connection, workplace, audio and video equipment) enabling the educational process outside of the university. This is a permanent problem with enabling? the? self-study? process? of? those? not having a computer at home, for example. For this the university is equipped with computer classes with the necessary software. These are impossible to be used for distant learning. The University cannot fund providing 15 thousand students with the required equipment so is for several thousand staff members. So in practice the process is based on the informal win-win interest of all the parties: the University administration, the staff and the students. As the vast majority have the necessary means, they do not obstruct the distance learning process. However, there is always a risk for single special cases requiring individual solutions. (Source: Wikipedia)
3. Remote Workplaces:
Another emerging problem for distance learning is the workplace itself. Even for professors it's not always easy to hold lectures, as there should be some quiet place with silence remaining for many hours each day. Any noise coming from the children, or from a neighbour–drilling or mowing forces to cease a class. As in quarantine times home is the only possible place for working and study, some tutors film their lectures in the night to ensure suitable atmosphere for that, providing the students with off-line material. However, the night lectures are not a suitable option for most of the lecturers, especially having multiple lectures each day, as this may negatively impact their health and many students faced network issue at night.
For the students it's also not always easy to find a suitable place. All in all, any compact housing shared by several people remotely working or studying tends to turn into some kind of a call-centre with the possible psychological tensions penetrating. Some students do some household works too.
4. Increasing the Efficiency of Distant Classes:
On the other hand, switching to distance learning technologies brings new opportunities for interaction and communication. Despite the physical distance between the tutors and the students, the availability for online communication may bring the two parties closer reducing the communication cycle time.
The challenge here is to guide the students to learn individually and independently. Of course, the new means provide new abilities for interaction also including cooperation, such as guest lectures, for example.
The current situation is more a challenge for the tutors. They should prepare and deliver the educational content in a way to involve each student into interactive work. Compared to the person-to person communication it is much harder for the students to keep their attention on the studied subject.
Gradually the people are getting used to working remotely. There comes the understanding the quarantine is a long-lasting process and there is a chance of repeat. Another aspect is that the possibility to use distant learning techniques existed previously. However, from now on these are getting more common for the people and there seems to be a very high chance of the more effective use distant learning means not only to improve the remote education process itself, but to update the classical learning paradigms by integrating the newly tested technologies.
Figure-A
Share of classes at national research university “MPEI†conducted with various distant learning technologies in the first month of exclusively remote study.
5.Choosing Distant Learning Means:
Figure-A depicts the situation with distance learning technologies used for educational process in the first month of quarantine, when the university was closed both for the students and the staff. Only 17% of the classes were held as live webinars. For some classes the newly developed simulators were used along with interactive presentations, web and cloud services. Due to the above mentioned problems most of the classes (around 60%) were conducted with using email, messengers or social networks by the staff for distributing the tasks among the students and getting results back.
6.Digital Twin Concept:
As mentioned above the very important practical part of the educational process in engineering cannot be rapidly switched to distant learning means. One of the possibilities to do so is using the sophisticated simulation models of real industrial equipment including assistant reality technologies.
At the same time simulation is one of the key points of the industry 4.0 concept. The digital twin concept considers the real object and a model – of the object itself, or complementary objects. Considering and analyzing the behavior of the two some autonomous decision can be carried out, including autonomous. For industrial purposes digital twins can be used for
Analysis and optimization of industrial systems before setting it up or launching. For example, production line layout within a workshop and functioning simulation.
Diagnostic purposes. Based on the difference in behavior of the equipment and the digital twin malfunctioning can be diagnosed.
Commissioning or testing speeding up. For example, the fault handling features, can be tested faster with a digital twin, as the faults can be emulated at the required moment of time without involving hardware.
Personnel training. Training of personnel to operate virtual or real hardware with interactive means, Including augmented reality.
Industry 4.0 is a paradigm for considering deep integration of the digital and physical worlds, also being referred to as the forth industrial revolution. Digitalization in industry is the emerging task for the nearest future. So is for education. Moreover, the new technologies brought to education not only improve the education quality itself, but expedite their application in industrial environment. From this point of view COVID-19 pandemic is an opportunity for academia to keep up with the changes. And the challenge is not in the fact that some changes are to be applied, as these should be introduced sooner or later. The COVID-19 challenge is that everyone was forced to start changing and the changes are rapid and versatile.
For holding many of the classes the lecturers and the student have to organize their workplaces, master distant learning software tools. And the changes are coming themselves with the people getting used to remote technologies and doing their best to organize the process more efficiently.
As for practical work with equipment – here there is some more to be done. Designing virtual simulators requires the corresponding competence and a significant amount of time and the corresponding funding. It is also worth mentioning, that the people capable of implementing such technologies are involved in many other information technology processes required to maintain vital functions of the educational institution. Even when buying the third-party solutions, the tutor does not always get exactly what is required and these still need competence and time to master and to prepare the education – related documentation and to modify the Curricula.
Using the digital twin concept however can not only enable remote learning, but can improve the educational process in non-pandemic times. For example, a digital twin of a laboratory installation can be used to firstly simulate the work of the properly working equipment. The tutor introduces some changes into the experimental setup and the students are to diagnose it. For this during the laboratory work the students compare the results obtained from the model and from the real object. With the people getting used to this format it will be easier to introduce classes with operating remote hardware not available on site, bringing unique equipment into the universities as an on-demand service.
7. ED-TECH: THE FASTEST GROWING INDUSTRY:
The lockdown and fear of Covid-19 has taken schools, colleges and educational institutions online. Some edu-tech platforms have seen their user base double in the last 10 months in both segments- paid and free unique users in the K12 and post K-12 segments. Today, the number of students online stands at 90 million and will only grow from here.
According to a report by RedSeer and Omidyar Network India, the online education market for class 1-12 is projected to increase 6.3 times in the next one year and create a $1.7 billion market. The post K-12 market is set to grow 3.7 times to touch $1.8 billion.
For example, edutech platform upGrad reached a million users recently. It grew 100% in 9 months from the start of the financial year and is targeting Rs 2,500 crore in revenue for FY21-22. (Source: Hindustan Times)
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8.PROS AND CONS OF ONLINE TECHNICAL EDUCATION:
For technical education, inspite of having some difficulties, it has some benefits also.
*Students can complete independent assignments outside of school hours allowing for more flexibility.
*Students do have to face outside distractions that are present in a school environment.
*Students can learn with less fear/anxiety about others judging them. Students who may feel embarrassed asking for help may be more comfortable coming forward.
*Students may have more opportunities to take certain electives or areas of special interest classes...or even incorporate their interests into their courses.
*Students can work from the comfort of their own home (or any other location).
9. Policies undertaken by Government for online education:
While more than 90 per cent of the countries adopted digital and/or broadcast remote learning policies, only 60 per cent did so for pre-primary education.
*Policy measures taken by the governments to ensure learning continuity through broadcast or digital media allowed for potentially reaching 69 percent of schoolchildren (at maximum) in pre-primary to secondary education globally.
*31 per cent of schoolchildren worldwide (463 million) cannot be reached by the broadcast- and Internet-based remote learning policies either due to the lack of necessary technological assets at home, or because they were not targeted by the adopted policies.
*Online platforms were the most used means by the governments to deliver education while schools remain closed, with 83 per cent of countries using this method. However, this allowed for potentially reaching only about a quarter of schoolchildren worldwide.
10.Conclusion :
COVID-19 pandemic challenges force the engineering education to change as fast as never before. The system adopts legal norms, the people are getting familiar with the novel means, find the opportunities to improve their workplaces this way improving the education outcome. The main challenge still to be solved is to teach the future engineers to work with and to operate real hardware not available at home. The implementation of a Digital Twin concept for industrial equipment can partially solve the emerged problem related with hardware unavailability by the remote learning process as well as to improve the professional training quality as the pandemic is over.
11.REFERENCES :
3. V. Duong, J. Luo, and Y. Wang, “The Ivory Tower Lost: How College Students Respond
4. The Times of India
5. The Hindu Papers 6. ieeexplore.ieee.org
7. Google