Write an essay on “Impact of Corona Virus”
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The coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 causes a deadly disease, COVID-19 with a fatality rate between 2-3%. It has created havoc as it has engulfed the whole world, being declared a pandemic by the WHO. Lockdowns that have been imposed in almost all countries to save the citizens from the lethal infection have taken a toll, shattering economies. The disease has not spared even the advanced European countries, let alone the backward African countries and the developing Asian countries. The first and foremost job in the hands of the governments is not to save their people from the infection by imposing lockdown and social distancing only, but also to cope with the lockdown to save the economies. The Indian Government is no exception. The Indian economy was already passing through a recession and experts were saying that the economy was heading towards depression even before the advent of the corona virus. COVID-19 has dealt a severe blow on the economy. It will be difficult to come out of this situation and depression once the lockdown is over.
Against the backdrop of such a pandemic, it is obvious that the education sector will suffer in all the countries like many other sectors. The Indian education system has been badly affected by the entry of the disease and also because of social distancing measures that were taken to prevent the spread of the disease. The ultimate act on the part of the Central government has been to impose a lockdown on the entire country.
Impact of Corona Virus on Education
Even before the lockdown was enforced in the 3rd week of March, 2020, the state governments in their individual capacities declared the schools and colleges and the other educational institutions closed for a certain period of time from the middle of March. The closure was extended for some more time and finally the lockdown was declared. Thus the education system has been hampered for the last one and a half months. This is about regular classes in the educational institutions. Just before the full lockdown, international flights were banned from leaving and entering the country, thereby restricting people from going abroad to attend scheduled international seminars, workshops and also from visiting foreign universities for taking and giving classes and lectures etc. This was followed by cancellation of the national and domestic flights also thus resulting into people not being able to visit the places for educational purpose even inside the country. Finally with the lockdown, the trains also stopped running and thus the scheduled seminars etc had to be cancelled in all the stages, like, national, state and regional, and even local. Not only have seminars been cancelled, even visiting educational institutes for other purposes had to be postponed, for example, taking viva for thesis, projects etc and for other administrative purposes.
With the full lockdown being imposed in the country, the education sector initially came to a standstill. This is an unprecedented and unfamiliar situation, and nobody still knows when the situation will be normal. It is imperative that the lifting of lockdown should obviously not take place in one go, but gradually, as otherwise the very purpose of the imposition of lockdown will be defeated with the spreading of the disease again. It is also true that unless the social distancing measures are removed, bringing back normalcy will be difficult. It is a known fact that the educational institutions are most vulnerable for the spread of the disease due to the mass gathering in the classrooms. Therefore unless, the infection is totally eradicated from the states, it is difficult to bring back the students to the schools, colleges, universities and other educational institutions. Resuming normal classes in classrooms therefore seems a distant dream at this time.
Gradually the system is getting accustomed to the situation. Distance classes, using various online platforms, have been started in many institutions. It is, however, difficult to say at this moment, how far it has been successful, especially when one is situated in an urban areas and has the advantage of teaching an elite class. As a teacher of one of the elite (and oldest) Universities of the country, I have the advantage of teaching an elite subject predominantly to urban students, where all students have smartphones although all of them may not have desktops and/or laptops. Even the few semi-urban and/or rural students in my class are used to having online chats on their smartphones. Since the hostels are closed now many students have gone back to their homes, some in rural areas where they cannot connect, mainly due to poor internet connectivity in their hometowns. The courses I teach are non-laboratory based, and are largely non-mathematical, so I am able to continue with online classes.