The new methodology shall be serving mutual interests to both student and the teacher. Not only the virtual classrooms reduce the exorbitant overhead of running a physical school, the recurring costs of buying stationaries, dresses, conveyance, etc., shall also be reduced for the ward and their parents. The planning to put the systems in place is taking shape slowly and the target to make the virtual classrooms and the engagement between the teacher and students as close to a real is being implemented.The solutions to students’ doubts shall be just a click away. Going forward, these tools can also make the teachers and parent meetings as well as staff/management meetings more time and cost saving while providing the necessary interactivity.
Technology-based education is more transparent and does not make a difference in front vs. back benchers or girls vs. boys.Pedagogy in digital education is an important link between course content, educationists, technology and course-takers. Going forward, the use of technology in teaching or recruitment will lead to a new era wherein the best of faculty will be available from across the globe to students.Most importantly, once the mandatory infrastructure is ensured, especially at the rural set up, the physical barrier of unavailability of a school, a trained teacher, opportunities to a bright future, transparent assessment, capacity building and cross learning shall be mitigated immediately.
Although everyone is boasting high of the technological revolution in the education system, but we also need to understand the crisis, this sudden shoving of education into digital mode has caused. According to the Key Indicators of Household Social Consumption on Education in India report, based on the 2017-18 National Sample Survey, less than 15 per cent of rural Indian households have Internet (as opposed to 42 per cent urban Indian households). A mere 13 per cent of people surveyed (aged above five) in rural areas — just 8.5 per cent of females could use the Internet. The poorest households cannot afford a smartphone or a computer. Though universal digital education would be beneficial in the longer run,due to lower physical barriers, but achieving this can be a huge challenge, especially when a large chunk of socio-economically weaker children are enrolled in government schools in cities and villages, who are already in financial crisis due to lockdown and cannot afford requisites of digital learning like smart phones or laptops.
Not only learners, schools and educational institutions are also struggling to have an access to the required infrastructure like internet connectivity, telecom infrastructure, affordability of online system, availability of laptop/desktop, software, educational tools, online assessment tools, etc. Teachers at the schools are not well equipped with the gadgets, so the first thing required shall be the capacity building of the teachers.
Government of India is taking every possible step to make this shift as swift as possible, publishing information on various initiatives undertaken by ministries like MHRD and its Department of Technical Education, NCERT and others to support and benefit youth and students. It has created infrastructure to deliver e-education, which includes National Knowledge Network (NKN), National Project on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL), National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (NMEICT), National Academic Depository (NAD), among others. All these enhance ability to connect easily with institutions and improve access to learning resources.
NEP 2020 having its focus on digitization as the core of new ‘Teaching Learning Methodology’ emphasizes on skills and outcome-based learning over the theoretical mugging of the curriculum. The Policy has delved upon the modus operandi that shall be followed to gain this shift. Along with a cohesion in public-private partnerships, proper remedial measures are to be taken with a sense of urgency to create better learning environments for rural and backward children enabling them to realise their full potential while participating in the nation building process and harnessing our demographic divided.
One of the key aspects of coping with Covid-19 is to ensure that the learning for all continues, even though virtually. This could be an ideal time to accept technology and its latest offerings in order to make education delivery to students more efficient and make it more productive through online teaching-learning, and assessments. COVID 19 is an opportunity amidst the challenges to bridge the gaps in our teaching-learning and skilling ecosystem as technology makes learning opportunities more universal. We must put a quick model in place, engaging all actors and stakeholders to reach out with technology to each and every learner in our country. It would then result in a true revolution of the system and India could easily achieve its dream of becoming a global super economy and a super leader.
(Dr. Neelam Gupta, Founder of AROH Foundation, an NGO working to empower poor and alleviate poverty, is a prominent thought leader and a prolific writer expressing her opinion on a variety of topics like education, gender, culture, livelihood, social development, etc. president.aroh@gmail.com)
Image courtesy – AROH Foundation