- Sakal India Foundation
- June 10, 2021
Table of Contents
The impact of pandemic COVID-19 noticed in every sector around the world. The education sectors of India, as well as the world, are poorly affected by this. It has forced the worldwide lockdown creating a very bad impact on the life of students. Around 32 crore students & learners stopped going to schools/colleges, and all educational programs halted in India.
The outbreak of the COVID-19 virus has taught us that change is imminent. It worked as an enzyme for the educational organisations to develop and opt for platforms with advanced technologies, which have not been used before. The education sector has battled to outlive the crises with a different strategy and using the internet against the pandemic.
The lockdown has forced many institutions to drop their regular classes, internships, examinations etc. and to choose the online medium.
Initially, the teachers and the learners were quite perplexed and didn’t know how to cope with a crisis that forced the closure of the educational activities.
Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Education in India
The lockdown has prepared us to manage the crisis of such pandemics. Thus, COVID-19 has created many hurdles and possibilities for educational organizations to strengthen their technical know-how and infrastructure. The lockdown has given them a new approach for teachers and students to continue their educational activities online.
The teachers assigned daily work to students via the internet. Lectures are delivered through live video conferencing using different Apps like Zoom, Facebook, Youtube, Google-meet, & Skype etc. There are WhatsApp groups of parents, teachers, and students for two-way communication through which they are always in touch to share their challenges through this e-medium.
The Positive Impact of COVID-19 on the Education System:
1. Blended Learning:
The pandemic has hastened the acquisition of digital technology to deliver education. The institutions have moved towards a blended mode of learning. It urged all students & teachers to become more tech-savvy. New ways of acquiring and evaluations of learning have opened immense opportunities for a transformation in curriculum development and teaching.
2. The Augmentation in use of Learning Management Systems:
The learning management systems used by institutions are in great demand. It opened numerous opportunities for the companies that develop and strengthen learning management systems for educational institutions.
3. Learning through digital material:
In this lockdown situation, students were not able to get study materials and hence most of the students used digital soft copy materials for reference.
4. Global Collaborative Work:
There is a new possibility where collaborative teaching and learning can take on new models. Collaborations can also happen among teachers across the world to benefit from each other.
5. Improved Digital Literacy:
The pandemic situation influenced people to learn and use digital technology that resulted in increasing digital literacy.
The Negative Impact of COVID-19 on the Education System:
1. Educational activity halted:
Classes have been suspended, and exams at different levels delayed. The different boards have already delayed the annual examinations and entrance tests. The admission process got delayed. Due to continuity in lockdown, the students suffered a loss of nearly three months of the academic year of 2020-21. The students would face many obstacles in resuming schooling again after a big gap.
2. Unemployment rate:
Most of the recruitments got suspended due to the pandemic. Placements for students may also be affected, with companies delaying the onboarding of students. The unemployment rate is being expected to increase due to this pandemic.
3. The unpreparedness of teachers & students for online education:
Not all mentors & learners are good at it, or at least not all of them were ready for this unforeseen transition from face to face learning to online learning. Most educators are just conducting lectures on video platforms such as Zoom, Google meet, etc., which may not be real online learning without any dedicated online learning platform.
4. Payment of Educational Institutes fee got delayed:
During this lockdown, most of the parents lost income. They may not be able to pay the fee for that particular period, which may affect the private institutes.
5. No Mid-day meals due to school closure:
Mid-day meal is a school meal initiative of the Government of India, which intends to provide better nutritional food to school-age children nationwide. The closure of schools has severe implications on the daily nutrition of rural students as the mid-day meal schemes have temporarily shut.
Government Strategies To Save Education System
The Indian Government has taken several preventive measures. The government declared a nationwide lockdown of all educational institutions on 16th March 2020. The State Governments & other international boards also delayed examinations due to the outbreak of Covid-19.
CBSE released updated guidelines to organize examinations by keeping a distance of at least one meter between the students with a class strength of 24 kids only. The Union Public Service Commission delayed the interview for the Civil Services Examination 2019 to prevent the virus.
The government has instructed the schools to hold all their classes online. The lockdown has expedited the adoption of digital technology. It has provided a prospect to develop new and improved professional skills/knowledge through online learning more efficiently and productively.
The digital India vision of the government is appearing as an important intermediary for solving the present crisis due to Covid-19.
The digital initiatives of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) for secondary and higher education during COVID-19 listed as below:
Secondary Education:
- Diksha Portal : website – https://diksha.qov.in
- e-Pathshala : website – http://epathshala.nic.in
- National Repository of Open Educational Resources (NROER)
Website – http://nroer.qov.in/welcome
Higher Education:
- Swayam : website – https://swayam.gov.in/
- Swayam Prabha : website – https://swayamprabha.gov.in/
- e-PG Pathshala : website – https://epgp.inflibnet.ac.in/
Conclusion
The covid-19 pandemic has impacted immensely the education sector of India. Though it has created many hurdles, various opportunities also evolved. The Indian Govt. and different EdTech stakeholders have explored the possibility of Open and Distance learning (ODL) by adopting advanced digital technologies to cope with the present crisis of Covid-19. India is not adequately equipped to make education reach all corners of the nation via digital platforms. It is the need of the hour for the institutions to enhance their technical know-how and Information Technology infrastructure to be prepared for facing Covid-19 like situations.
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