Online Education in Lockdown.... Boon or Curse

3rd May’2020 Last day of Covid-19 Lockdown 2.0 is just finished and we are moving towards the next phase 3.0 Lockdown and as we all know several businesses, Industries, jobs and lots of thing badly affected due to this Lockdown and in this article we will discuss about education industry and I would also like to clear one thing before starting this, I am not against or in favor of Online Education but sharing my own thoughts. At that time when we hear from lots of Health experts, Doctors and Politician that Life and health is on top for all, but in this changing landscape of school education I am unable to see this, don’t know how a new word become very common in school education and that is “ONLINE EDUCATION”, Everyone is talking about Online education like Schools, Teachers, Kids , Parents, Education Officials , Government Officials and Politicians as well but wait a moment and think are we really talking on ground or are we forgot our agenda or kids health is not important anymore for us, in this article I am highlighting few questions and their answers as per best of my knowledge and understanding.

1.      Is it really filling the gap of learning during school’s closure?

2.      Do we have prepared any concrete plan of Online education during this lockdown?

3.      Why Education Influencers supporting Online Education?

4.      Schools who didn’t even changed their old traditional approach of education with new pedagogy and methodology, why adapting this new technology called “Online Education” immediately?

5.      Are we really giving worth full learning to the kids in this “Online Education”?

6.      What need to do?

Let’s discuss these questions and try to figure out What actually happening, instead of what has to be happened…

Is it really filling the gap of learning during school’s closure?

Answer is “No”, and this answer is crystal clear and self-explanatory we all know from inside that this really not helping kids to learn even understand, where we are still struggling what should be the best approach of teaching inside the classroom so our children’s can be able to understand what taught, and suddenly someone come and say don’t worry we have solution of filling the education gap through online education, trust me It’s a joke or someone is trying to fool you.

Let me tell you how, and problems facing by students in learning and it will increase health issues as well: -

a)     Internet Connectivity

b)     Smartphone screen it’s 5 inches (mostly) and Lots of parents in rural India don’t even have smartphone.

c)     Laptops (As we all know how many parents and students have laptops in affordable schools and semi-urban and rural India)

d)     Teachers and student’s connectivity

e)     Maximum schools using chatting platform by making groups, where only teachers giving homework, learning can’t take place only in homework.

f)      No evaluation facility in that platforms, only one-way teaching

g)     Even our teachers are not trained or prepared for this online teaching

h)     As per my discussion with couple of school’s Active students in this online education is only 15-20% maximum.

i)       80% students still not connected on that platform in rural and affordable schools means complete failure.

j)       Affecting on kid’s health as well by using smartphone or laptop, one of research says for kids at age below 12 more than 2 hours spend in a day is equivalent to addiction of cocaine.

k)     Most of the important things most of teachers saying Productivity is zero in this online education.

Do we have prepared any concrete plan of online education during this lockdown?

As per my discussion with couple of school owners and when I asked them do you received any concrete plan from government officials or do you have any self-prepared plan for this online education, again the answer came “No”, Neither schools have any concrete plan nor a government official even they don’t in the favor of Online education but just because they are getting instructions from government officials or some other schools are doing this, that’s why they are doing such activity just taking as a marketing stunt against in the fear of losing admission.

Why Education Influencers supporting Online Education?

One statement explains this very well whenever any uncertainty suddenly came into the existence this affect lots of industries and people but simultaneously it gives opportunity or profit some of wise personalities even they also get benefitted when it's go back. Some education influencers from front and wise businessmen from inside explored this opportunity and even they are encashing the opportunity very well and trying to get benefit from people's fear meanwhile lots of companies are changing their business model into online education and lots of small companies came into the existence by just copy paste methodology which is used technique in India.

Schools who didn’t even changed their old traditional approach of education with new pedagogy and methodology, why adapting this new technology “Online Education” immediately?

Don’t you ever think that Why? If “No” means you already knew the answer and if “Yes” let me tell you, maximum schools are not in the favor of this Online Education in affordable segment even they are not interested to do it for a single moment, now question comes than why they are doing this, just because of given below highlighted points: -

A)        First and most concerned point, school doesn’t want lose their fight to get school fees. (They have responsibilities on their shoulder of school staff Teaching and Non-Teaching anyone who is associated with school, Transport Expense, Bills, maintenance and many more)

B)        Competitor School doing remember a phrase Monkey see, Monkey do.

C)        Don’t want to lose connectivity fear of losing the admission.

D)       Marketing Stunt.

E)        Received instructions from Government Officials.

F)        Teachers doing this without knowing anything just because their salary, as livelihood become more difficult after this lockdown and schools will not pay salary, if they didn’t received fees and many more reasons.

Are we really giving true learning to the kids in this “Online Education”?

Again very interesting thing at the time when we are facing an uncertainty that we never expected and we are still not learning anything from this, we again doing the same mistake instead of taking lesson, even now we should understand the real meaning of education, when we got a chance to educate them about several things, then again storing the information in their brain is not a good thing. Now, it’s time to educate them about how to be get prepared to fight future uncertainty and how to convert obstacle into the opportunity but what we are doing just trying to store books information into kids brain and proper manner subject wise, are we real.

 “It’s doesn’t mean how many resources you have, if you don’t know how to use them it will never be enough”

What need to do?

Most importantly we must take this lockdown period as an opportunity and prepare kids for future and help them to learn How to handle everything after Covid19 and lockdown and  we must set a well-planned curriculum for kids that must discover and teach about some skills to the kids like Language (By teaching them multiple languages), Safety and Hygiene (What we expecting from them to follow after reopening the school, we must teach them in advance), Thinking Skills (That help them to fight any upcoming uncertainty), Creativity (Teach them how to be more creative in their day to day life to make them self-dependent), Social Responsibility ( Skills to handle social relationships) and Current Affairs (Help them to understand about current scenario and what they learning in this Covid 19 scenario) and that must be age appropriate instead of storing information in their brain. (If anyone wants know more on it, can contact me)

If anyone want to discuss anything on it, feel free to write on [email protected], I am just sharing my own views as per my knowledge, I might be wrong and made some mistakes but every suggestion, guidance and feedback will be appreciated.

Thanks!

Written by: -

Shivam Sharma

#Education #Schools #Educationist #Covid19