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Online Classes Worry Students Across India

“Education is the movement from darkness to light”

                                                                              Allan Bloom

The thought of not visiting college and studying from house is always sounded exciting, until it’s completed with the correct management. It is difficult to attend classes from home while spending time with family as compare to when they attend class offline by going college. However, e-learning is not new, as now its look in trend due to the pandemic of COVID-19. It is a necessary step which has been taken by the education department to convert the education into a virtual mode while the duration of lockdown. 

According to UNESCO, Due to the pandemic of COVID-19, some 1.37 billion students in 138 countries have been affected by closure of school and university. Almost 60.2 million teachers of schools and colleges are not able to take class offline. Since, the whole country is under lockdown so the e-education is only option left, since the whole country is under lockdown. University faculties are making accounts on online video conferencing platforms such as Zoom, Skype and Google meet to engage with their students.

Online education has made the possibility of on-demand classes, at anytime and anywhere, on any digital device, but it has turned the education into a new challenging face for the administration as well as students. Today, digital education is a mixture between existing cultural conventions like reading material and course books and conventions of software – new media like pdfs.

There are some advantages of online classes that are worth consideration. One of the best advantage of online classes is adjusting learning into the existing schedule. The flexibility will help in maintaining a job while working on education. Students who are attending online classes are getting more time to complete a course, within a time period provided by their teachers. This will allow them to spend more time with their family without sacrificing that time on completing the work. And it also provide an option to do any online job simultaneously.

Online education is more affordable option than offline education because the expenses of going to college is one of the biggest reasons which aspire students to hold back from enrolling in a program. In addition the travelling cost can also be save by them by doing online classes, and it also enable the option to earn money by doing any job.

Today, online classes are ongoing but it doesn’t mean that it has reached to a state of perfection. There are some several challenges which have been seen due to the sudden shift of education to virtual mode. According to a report issued on April 21, given by United Nations Educational, Scientific Cultural Organization (UNESCO) highlighted the concern about online shift.

While giving a global perspective UNESCO has noted that, “Half of the total number of students, some (826 million) students has been kept out of the classroom by the COVID-19 pandemic because they do not have computer or electronic devices and 43% (706 million) have no internet at their home and at a time when digitally-based distance learning is used to secure educational continuity in the vast majority of countries.

What Are The Advantages of Online Courses-? 

1. Online courses are convenient and flexible. 

2. It brings education right to your home.
3. It offer more individual attention and help you to meet interesting people.
4. It provide you real world skills, which promote your life-long learning.
5. It also have financial benefits.
6. It teach you to be self-disciplined which help you in connecting with peoples globally.

What Are The Disadvantages of Online Courses? 

1. Online courses take more time than on-campus classes, because it require good time-management skills.
2. It may create a sense of isolation.
3. It gives you more freedom, perhaps, more than you can handle.
4. It require you to be an active learner.
5. It don’t have an instructor hounding you to stay on task.
6. It makes you responsible for your own learning.

Internet Accessibility-

In a country like India where access to the internet is very low, this new education model may be fail badly hence, the Internet can be comes out as a major issue which can challenge e-education. From the last two decades, there has been a conscious effort made by the government to improve access to the internet in every sector. But still, India is facing the internet challenges.

The Niti Aayog has highlighted in its report i.e. ‘Strategy for New India @75’ that, the quality and reliability of the internet as an important bottleneck. It also pointed that 55,000 villages in the country are without mobile network coverage.

The concept of online classes has been turn as a problematic situation for those students who have gone home during the crisis. Those students who belongs to urban areas are more likely to have internet access, in compare to those students who belongs to rural area. The students who belongs to rural area, nearly 28% are likely to have internet access at home.

Kashmir does not have access to 4G internet connection, students are still dealing with the problem of slow internet and it make tough for them to keep pace as compare to other state’s students. Colleges are also finding it difficult to reach out with their students with 2G internet connection.

Facing basic issues like internet connectivity and India’s notoriously undesirable power supply for more issues like e-tests and e-exams, students have come under a lot of stress. Final year students are the most affected. Final year students are most effected. They have not yet dropped out of the syllabus and preparations for placement and application for Universities for higher education have stalled everywhere.

Struggle for parents

E-education has been turned out to be a new thing for school kids and more than them, their parents are struggling in understanding the e-assignment. Many school students have not received their school course and we know that without textbooks it is very difficult for them to understand and keep up with the virtual classroom activities. As per the parent’s point of view, E-education is not helping their kids and they also fear that will their children get sufficient time to prepare for exams as they were getting in normal days. School students of age 4-12 usually not have their own mobile phones and some students don’t know how to use them. Due to this reason teachers are connecting with them through their parent’s phone which is also sometimes indulges parents in the process and it consumes their time also. Those parents who are working from home are basically struggling with this problem because they have to choose one thing between their work and child’s education.

Privacy concern-

Over the past few months, the teleconference software named as Zoom has seen explosive growth, it is easy and convenient in use. But this comfort has also come with increased scrutiny and a slew of uncovered security which were screw-up. Privacy concerned people are also finding it not secure to use.
Of course, the current situation is unpredicted one but, we should always have to be prepared for such situations. The issue of online teaching and online exams is not the main issue, the real question is why our education system is so behind in this digital era. Our educational planner have to focus on more technological advancement so that they can provide a better and secure way of education.

Conclusion-

Yes, online classes can be worry for students across India, but we (student) have to take this in positive way. We all know that we are dealing with the pandemic of COVID-19 due to which continuation of offline classes is not possible. The online classes is the only option left to continue education of all the students. This option is chosen by the education authority for the better future of all the students.

“PADHEGA INDIA TABHI TO BADHEGA INDIA” 
This blog is authored by- Divya Shree Nandini




29 thoughts on “Online Classes Worry Students Across India”

  1. Every point in the blog is easy to understand…U have talked about both advantages and disadvantages. A lot of research has also been done while writing the blog.

  2. After reading this, the conclusion could be more appropriate. Like online classes are just an option we should not consider it for long time. I do not find any fruit full results by online classes I like the way in which the blog is written. Hope to see you soon on a genuine media network. @Nandini
    *please ignore the grammatical mistakes

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