Education Emergency — Why Schools Should Open Its Doors

One sector which is silently hit by the Covid-19 pandemic the most is the education. As a precautionary measure, schools were the first to be shut even before a formal announcement of lockdown. After all, education doesn't come under the umbrella of essential services.

According to the data from UNICEF, schools for more than 168 million children globally have been completely closed for almost an entire year, and more than 888 million children worldwide continue to face disruptions to their education due to full and partial school closures.

In India, only one in four children have access to digital devices and internet connectivity. There is a large rural-urban and gender divide which is why not everyone is able to benefit the digital revolution. Such vulnerable children unable to access remote learning might never be able to get back to learning even after the pandemic fades away, and could be easily exploited as child labor.

Shifting Classes Online

To those who can access it, technology has come as a rescue in the time of need with new and existing Ed-tech startups. Many of such startups grew exponentially during the Covid-19 lockdowns. And, few of them become unicorn sponsoring Indian Cricket team. However, there are some serious drawbacks of online education. Some of them are:

Lack of interaction

In remote learning, the natural interaction between teacher and students, as it happens in traditional classroom, is very limited.

No room for social development

Schools serve as an agency for socialization. Most of the schoolchildren rely on schools to interact with their peers and teachers.

Lacks discipline

Most children attending online class just sit in front of the device without paying attention to the teacher.

Chaos

Even a small technical glitch or unwanted noises coming from microphones can disturb the class. At times, managing children online becomes very harassing for the teachers.

No curiosity among learners

As the interaction is limited, a teacher has very little scope of making the lesson more interesting by arousing curiosity.

Learning is no longer a fun

It is seen that in online classes, children get bored and distracted more easily.

There are some merits in that too, such as catching up on missed classes or learning difficult concepts through animated videos. But overall, online class is no match to the teaching-learning that happens in a traditional classroom in which children's cognitive, affective, psychomotor and social skills are developed, honed and crafted preparing them holistically for their future.

The Future

One thing is clear, education will never be the same as it was during pre-covid times. Ed-tech has made deep roots in the minds of children and parents just like coaching institutes did earlier. Classes certainly won't be exclusive online forever. But it might also not be exclusive offline as it used to be. The advocates of online learning (now a big lobby) suggests it as a revolutionary and modern way to teach and learn. Most educators now believe that education would be the mix of both online and classroom medium in the future.

New Education Policy (NEP), although advocates for the use and integration of technology in education, it has only a complementary role, not a supplementary. That is, It cannot replace the teacher but only be effective if it is used by the teacher.

Education might not be an essential service but it's definitely an essential part of human development. It is also true that learning can happen anywhere but we need formal schooling to accelerate the process of learning and to make it in a systematic way. Therefore, government must focus on getting formal education back on the track by opening schools.

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