Give 2 minutes speech on ''POST COVID SCHOOL EDUCATION". With Conclusion
Answers
Answer:
The Authors, Deepali Kasrekar and Gayatri Wadhavane-Tapaswi are lawyers based in Pune, Maharashtra having extensive experience in Corporate, Commercial and Criminal Litigation.
The petrifying and severe impact of COVID-19 has shaken the world to its core. Further, most of the Governments around the world have temporarily closed educational institutions in an attempt to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. In India too, the government as a part of the nationwide lockdown has closed all educational institutions, as a consequence of which, learners ranging from school going children to postgraduate students, are affected.
These nationwide closures are impacting over 91% of the worlds' student population. Several other countries have implemented localized closures impacting millions of additional learners. UNESCO is supporting countries in their efforts to mitigate the immediate impact of school closures, particularly for more vulnerable and disadvantaged communities, and to facilitate the continuity of education for all through remote learning. The UNESCO report estimates that the coronavirus pandemic will adversely impact over 290 million students across 22 countries. The UNESCO estimates that about 32 crores students are affected in India, including those in schools and colleges.
Explanation:
This pandemic has made all the educational schools across the world to adopt teaching online. Courses are conducted online, examinations are conducted online, assignments are submitted through email. For countries like India, this is a good opportunity to strengthen the internet connectivity across rural India. Every village and towns in India should be digitally connected for better interaction between the students and teachers. Institutes like IITs have “a sort” of infrastructure to connect students but the experience shows that not all students had good interaction due to various reasons. Some of the students are quick to adapt to this system and some take little longer time to acquaint with this system. India should establish a good infrastructure for online education like some of the advanced countries. The greatest advantage of such a system is education can become international. Advance institutes like IITs and NITs can globalize online education while Universities, initially, nationalize online education. Fundamental structural changes should be made in the curriculum/syllabi and programmes should be popularized to attract students across the countries. Skill development should be part of the curriculum in Engineering and science degree programmes. This will create future entrepreneurs. This is one way to beat unemployment and increase business skills amongst the youth. The business community should play a leading role in this new educational system. What is the opinion of the experts?
The strength lies in the faculty and institute nurture. Faculty need to change their mundane teaching methods and adapt to evolving technology-centred teaching. The faculty should establish themselves as “competent” individuals who can deliver what the students expect. To establish faulty should be active in research and research publications and gain experience /skills in online teaching. In a way, the learning institutes become virtual institutes. Every student’s home becomes his institute. This will reduce the demand for the infrastructure of the institute. However, research labs should function as usual to support research. Research collaboration can go online and can be internationalized.
Higher education in India needs to be more international, more flexible(curriculum), should be innovative and should be open for more collaboration.
According to Dr Francisco Marmolejo, advisor to Qatar Foundation in India, during his webinar, held by the Jio International Institute, India, higher education should be re-designed. It should be flexible, more innovative, more international but more locally connected and socially responsible, more collaborative and less risk-averse. Innovative models should be introduced. Universities/institutes could be online- providing internet-based flexible offerings (open universities); traditional learning with hand-on work; collaboration with other schools. Of course, there are challenges one has to face at the initial stages: e.g. leveraging technology to deliver better and more inclusive education, contributing to digital economy and society and responding to global demand but shifting demographics. Faculty play the most important role in such a system. According to Dr Francisco, true international engagement comes with curriculum integration and active participation by the faculty. Faculty need to be motivated and actively involved in curriculum integration.
Online education does not mean without laboratory experience to students. Skill development needs laboratories/workshops. There could be centers across the countries to support skill development activities. These centers could be institutes, colleges, universities. On the research front: it is all collaboration and not competition. Projects needs to be designed through collaboration so that laboratory/research facilities could be shared. This will lead to strong centers of research laboratories on the scale of a region —-for example, there could be a strong collaboration within the SE Asia region. There is none till now.
Post Covid-19 is an opportunity to transform the higher education system. Institutes/ universities should utilize this opportunity to transform itself. Curriculum design, collaborations, skill development and faculty involvement —all should focus on internationalizing higher education. Today it is Covid-19…we don’t know what lies ahead in future for the million youngsters