Teachers rise to challenge to adapt technology in learning
2020 leapfrogs technological advancements in classrooms. Covid and reservations creates roadblocks in education
@hepzia
Mumbai: The year 2020 will go down in history for the way it transformed the education sector from a chalk-blackboard system to a virtual online classroom. The humble classroom teachers were probably the first professionals off the mark to adapt to the challenges posed by Covid-19. Teachers adapted quickly into online classrooms, hosting sessions on Zoom or Google Meet, took lessons via PowerPoint presentations complete with multimedia formats.
Covid suddenly pitch forked students into a whole new world of online education. In the brick and mortar classrooms, where computer was just one subject and online learning probably just one lesson, suddenly the entire learning process went in digital mode with laptops and mobile becoming the new platforms and buzzwords in education.
Textbooks lessons were shared on PDF’s, textbooks made available on Shiksha app and homework’s done on Google docs rather than in the plain old notebooks. If the world was waiting for computers to enter the educational sector, then Covid and the ensuing lockdown literally shoved online education in it. Virtual classrooms also meant that education continued uninterrupted for many students who were forced to migrate to their hometowns and return back to Mumbai owing to Covid-induced economic compulsions.
Suddenly, the urban-rural divide in the classrooms rose sharply in the education sector. As urban students learnt everything from mathematics to arts and even dance in online classes, the marginalized students shared mobiles, climbed atop trees and rooftops to get access to a good network to attend online classes. A few incidents of student suicides due to non-availability of mobiles to access studies unfortunately also reflected the sad reality of education denied to the under-privileged.
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All these divisions did reflect in the educational policies formed by the government. The final year examinations of all courses became a bone of contention between the Center and the states including Maharashtra. While many states preferred to let all students be promoted in view of exams being unviable due to safety concerns, the Central government rammed in and insisted on examinations to justify credibility of examination certificates. Many states even moved the Supreme Court against final year’s exams but to no avail. After announcing promotion of students without exams, students had to suddenly appear for online exams, forcing errors like students even getting zero or being marked absent.
The state’s duplicity too came to the fore in their decision making process. While Maharashtra strongly pushed forth for no exams in final years exams, it insisted on exams for its medical students despite medical colleges being the hub of Covid cases. Many students preferred to take a drop from the NEET or JEE exams which were much delayed but pushed forth and conducted.
While webinars, online conclaves and online court hearings became the order of the day, the online examinations were another new dimension in the field of education especially in specialized higher education courses. The India Institute of Technology’s (IIT) chose to conduct online proctored exams and some institutes also had online viva conducted by teachers through zoom. After teaching and exams going online, it was only natural for the admission process to also move on completely to the online platform.
As the world of education finally seemed to have smoothly moved online, it was the reservations of the Maratha community that disrupted the admission process. Court interventions on reservations meant that admissions to even Class XI or First Year Junior College (FYJC) forced much delay for the start to the academic year.
This year the Covid roadblock hit the academic year, but the teaching community and the entire system really transformed the crises into an opportunity and a new way of learning. India adapted to the web much faster and easily than many developed countries in the world despite gaps in technological access. A new lesson in learning for India, it was indeed.
