how to Wright article on online classes
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Since the COVID -19 pandemic has disrupted the normal lifestyle of people across the globe, the virtual world has come to the rescue. Amongst many institutions schools have also shifted their base to virtual platforms to conduct classes online. Consequently, catering to the needs of all stages of education from pre-primary to university level, online education has emerged as an alternative to ordinary face to face classes. Accordingly, various stakeholders such as government and private organizations are trying their best to assist each other by sprucing up their existing online platforms, apps and providing training to teachers to use these apps and platforms to the optimum level. Moreover, efforts are being made by both government and non-government organisations and edtech companies to support the school system to make a smooth transition to the virtual world. Upskilling and motivating teachers, organising counselling sessions for stakeholders such as teachers, parents and students are some of the important measures taken by the administration in the recent past. Making a continuous effort to provide customised teaching-learning material suitable for online classes is another way of facilitating the schooling of children. The Central government has recently launched the PM e-VIDYA platform, with 12 new DTH channels, one for each class to reach out to all stratas of society. These efforts have proved beneficial to a sizable chunk of the school-going population.
Moreover, the COVID 19 pandemic has put the spotlight on the ever-increasing structural imbalances in school education in terms of rural-urban, rich and poor and gender divide. There are reports in the media about teachers and principals of low fee private schools from across all over the country who are forced to change their job to survive and support their families as most of the schools have their shutters down due to plummeting revenues as their students have either dropped out from the school or have migrated to their native places due to joblessness and subsequent poverty of their parents. The schools which have managed to sail through such difficult situations are finding it difficult to acquire resources and upskilling their teachers to teach online. Some of the insights emerging from this scenario are the gaps in addressing the needs of students as well as teachers belonging to the marginalised sections of society. Inclusivity is the hallmark of the National Curriculum Framework 2005 as well as the draft National Education Policy 2019. Still, while addressing the issues arising out of this pandemic, the marginalised sections of the society are being neglected.
Technology has been considered central to the reform of school education and has gained unprecedented momentum during this pandemic. It is being perceived as a panacea to combat all the education/schooling related issues, hence the hurry to transfer classrooms into the virtual world without taking into consideration the reach to all learners. In a country as diverse as India in terms of regional, linguistic, caste, class and gender, and socioeconomic status, the school system is also characterised by stratification from elite to low fee private schools as well as government schools, creating a plethora of issues about specific educational, psychosocial and financial needs of students as well as teachers based on gender, caste, class and socioeconomic status. Under these circumstances, there is no way a unilateral approach to mitigate school education disruption is going to address these diverse and complex set of issues of multiple dimensions.
There are some lessons to be learnt from the countries like Syria, and Kenya and other African countries who for reasons such as conflict, refugee and recurring epidemics like Ebola have the experience of making provisions for the education of children during difficult times. Over the years they have developed strategies to keep the schooling of students going. There is evidence to show that for children belonging to disadvantaged groups, low tech mediums such as radio, television are useful. In circumstances where even these two are also out of reach, the distribution of paper-based learning materials helps, mostly for girls. Because even if there is a radio or TV in the house, she may not get the opportunity to access it due to the burden of household chores. Therefore the option to distribute books and supplementary notebooks based on audio-video lessons should be contemplated. The experience of tackling the Ebola crisis has helped Sierra Leone to prepare a better strategy to address Covid induced educational disruption. The country has implemented a plan to provide education to its children which includes radio broadcast as well as distribution of pen, pencil and books to students. With 80 per cent mobile phone penetration, the country is trying to capitalise on it by developing a mobile phone-based educational intervention.