As COVID-19 cases continue to rise in the city after a two-month remission, the hope that students had nurtured of returning to classrooms has been dashed. With online classes continuing to play the role of the substitute, students from across age groups have started to feel the loss.
Patchy Internet connectivity, missed internship or extra-curricular opportunities, lack of “school or college life” and navigating through home to find a place conducive for study are some of the issues students pointed out while looking back at the past year when classes went virtual.
For Harshul Singh, a second-year Political Science (Hons) student, studying in DU had always been an aspiration. However, before he could even complete his first year in the university, he was forced to return to Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh, his native place, due to the pandemic and the subsequent lockdown.
Problems aplenty
“I have always had the aspiration to be in Delhi University and a part of the intellectual community. While the lockdown has been an introspective one, things were not convenient. Sitting behind a screen with poor connectivity and in an environment not conducive to attending classes was not easy. The lack of access to libraries was an added issue. Overall, in the past year we have missed out on the essence of being a part of DU,” said Mr. Singh.
Talking about the difference in the quality of learning, Ramjas College student Sneha Saxena said: “The quality of online classes can never match that of physical classrooms. There were network issues due to which we even had to change the format of our mid-term examinations. Even though professors tried to help, the lack of proper discussions in class was a big disadvantage,” she said.
“Finding a place at home to attend these online classes was also an issue. I have two other siblings and initially we did not have enough devices for all three of us to attend classes simultaneously,” added Ms. Saxena, a native of Uttar Pradesh’s Shahjahanpur.
At the school level, the number of hours spent in front of the screen as well as lack of continuous supervision by an adult has led to its own set of problems. GeetaBisht, who bought a smartphone for her son to attend online classes, says that she was shocked during a parent teacher interaction when told that her son had not been attending classes. “Once I went back to my job, I would leave my son at home with the phone unsupervised. He was busy playing games and chatting with friends. I feel that he has lost out completely on a year. At first we took it as a positive that we can spend time as a family. But now, online class is no substitute,” Ms. Bisht said.
Missing campus life
Although online classes can tick the boxes of having finished covering the syllabus, students studying at premier schools or colleges feel they have missed out on the “experience” of studying at an institution that is irreplaceable. Navya Jain, a student of Indraprastha College for Women, lamented: “What I have missed the most in the last one year is the college experience that one looks forward to. Online classes are not as interactive as regular classes as most of the times people have their videos off and it is not the same.”
Several students also spoke about the “lack of connect” to professors, fellow classmates and the courses.
Veerangana Chauhan, a student of Political Science in Lady Shri Ram College for Women, said: “It feels like I am not being able to do anything properly these days. The most important factor is lack of connect with whatever I am trying to pursue. There are 80 people in our class and often with online teaching, professors are not able to devote individual time to all. These days even if there are tutorials scheduled, I am more concerned about saving data for the classes. Attending classes from home was another challenge as distractions were aplenty with family members around.”
Lack of internships was another drawback. “When I started college, I was looking forward to an overall experience including opportunities to get good internships. Under current circumstances, the scope for such opportunities is no longer possible. I was a part of the debating society among others most of which I have had to let go now,” said Ms. Chauhan.
Lack of discussions inside and outside classrooms have affected the teaching-learning process over the past year, according to professors. Tanvir Aeijaz, professor at Ramjas College, said: “Initially the feeling was that this is going to last momentarily and that we will all be back soon. But at this point, teachers are worried and frustrated. The vibrant discussions in classrooms are missing in online classes. It has become more like someone giving sermons. Usually most of the learning is done outside classrooms, which is no longer an option now.”
Teachers’ apprehension
Teachers have other doubts too. “In the backdrop of the New Education Policy (NEP) there is also apprehension among teachers that the government is pushing for online classes. Any policy which is top-down will have its repercussions if the primary stakeholders are not taken into account,” said Mr. Aeijaz.
While at the school level, parents have been sceptical about sending their students back to school due to the virus, at the university level, student groups have been demanding the reopening of colleges at the earliest. Students feel that the digital divide has created a gap that will be very difficult to bridge as students are not allowed on campus immediately.
The Students’ Federation of India along with other organisations that held a protest and hunger strike to demand reopening of campuses earlier this month said: “Students want campuses to reopen. There are so many infrastructural facilities, libraries and laboratories that students are restricted from accessing, thus decreasing the quality of their educational experience. Many students relied on these easily available resources on their campuses and university areas but the prolonged lockdown has reduced their opportunities. It is very evidently exclusionary and against the interests of the student community.”
Changing face
To help bridge the gap, EdTech companies have launched a number of innovative products to help create a favourable learning experience. When the lockdown happened, not many institutions were prepared to deal with shifting to online classes but as the year went along, solutions were found to leap over many of the hurdles.
Chandrabhanu Pattajoshi, founder of Glossaread, a platform that helps in making higher education more accessible and convenient, says that despite the challenging times, his company has seen an exponential growth in terms of expansion. “The EdTech industry has undergone a sea change with the shift towards online learning and greater adoption of technology tools. The lockdown has caused the transition from offline to online, especially for Indian education system at a much faster pace with classes, doubt-solving sessions, remedial and even assessments moving online,” Mr. Pattajoshi said.
He added that in a post-pandemic world, we will see a blend of online and offline learning in higher education. The industry believes that in the coming months and years, more students will prefer to study online and access content or study material online as it also addresses challenges such as expensive books, poor library infrastructure, multiple and fragmented sources of study material and the sheer amount of time one takes in gathering the relevant study material.
SumeetMehta, co-founder and CEO of LEAD, an EdTech company, observed that adoption of technology has been brought forward by a couple of years and that most schools undertook a ‘jugaad’ to set up online learning to make up for school shutdown.
However, he feels that going forward as the school reopens, there is a need to cover the learning gaps from last year and hence bridging courses are imperative. “Schools need to follow hybrid schooling which gives an option to switch between school modes [offline/online] and let the schools decide the days students will attend online class or physical school. Despite the challenging environment, we need to continuously add value and reinvent our learning models as we move away from the analogue world to the post-COVID world,” Mr. Mehta said.
Virtual school
An indicator to the change the COVID-19 had brought to learning can be seen from the announcement made by the Delhi government during the budget that it plans to launch a Virtual Delhi Model School. Education Minister Manish Sisodia said that the school will be based on the principle of “anywhere living, anytime learning, anytime testing” and it will not have four walls or a building but there will be children, teachers, regular teaching- learning, examinations and assessments.
“It will be a unique experiment in itself, and will probably be the first virtual school in the world. This will benefit students in Delhi as well as all those children who live in any part of the country but want to benefit from the Delhi education model,” Mr. Sisodia said.
