COVID 19 and New-day Campuses in India

 

Every year the Teachers' Day is celebrated as a grand fete all across the country. Right from the very first celebration in 1962 all sections of the people find it important to celebrate the day as it provides a humble way to pay respect to the maker of the future of the nation. But this year is quite different. Though the process of unlock has already started, the normalcy is yet to come. The normal activities of schools and colleges are still suspended. There is a long shadow of uncertainty looming across the educational campuses across the country. No one really knows when the normalcy will be restored in the campus. This year has been really challenging one. There is no doubt that in a pandemic situation the first priority is to save the lives of the students across the globe and hence several precautionary measures have been evolved to ensure physical distancing. It has been proven that the measures are effective to slow the spread of infection rate and hinder the fatality of the deadly virus. But the world has been facing various other problems. Nobody really knows how to get rid of them. On 26^th January China, the first epicenter of the deadly pandemic, extended its spring holiday to become the first country in the world to enforce campus closures to ensure physical distancing. As the pandemic began to spread other countries followed the suit very soon. Within 20^th March more than 70 percent learners across the globe were affected by the campus closing measures taken by 140 countries. As of 4^th September, 2020 about 73 percent world student population has been facing problems due to this measure.

It is the inherent nature of human being to learn from the crisis. And this kind of unforeseen situation has delivered a great deal of concern for rethinking and redesigning our educational system. Many countries have come forward with their own methods to address this crisis. In most affluent countries universities have been using the online methods to continue their studies. They are offering online courses where teaching learning process is mainly done through internet. In the twenty first century it is imperative to allow technological advances in every sphere of daily life and rearrange our lifestyle accordingly. We have to explore every means to expand all the possibilities. So developing new age campuses should be a priority in a new normal world. The focus is on five important facets- i) developing curriculum and syllabus involving some specific hours for online studies, ii) developing rich resources for online courses, iii) developing teaching- learning materials for online courses, iv) developing new evaluation method for online tests and project works and v) imparting capabilities among the teachers and the students through specific time bound programmes to ensure that they become capable enough to take advantage of these online courses.

 Till date most educationists have developed their educational theories to enrich the real classroom situations, but the present pandemic has shown that more focus should be on enriching on virtual classroom situations. How a teacher can engage a student by means of active participation is really  challenging. In higher classes conducting a laboratory test is almost impossible through online mode. On the other hand school campuses build some habits and values among the students. There is a socialization process which continuously and spontaneously goes on in a real school or college campus. Through online mode these can not be achieved.These are some shortcomings of online method, which are needed to be addressed. Moreover  the first generation learners will face more difficulty to cope with this system. So online method is not the panacea at all. But at the same time we have to face the reality that clocks cannot run backwards.  

In India too many schools and colleges are using this method to continue their courses but that has laid the most severe ailment of the human civilization completely bared. That is not the pandemic but unbridgeable divide between the haves and have nots. Recently OECD data reveals that while about 95% students in Norway, Austria, Denmark , Finland, Germany, Iceland, Switzerland have a computer to do their schoolwork, only 34% students have in Indonesia. In India the scenario is more pathetic. Recently published NSSO data of 2017-18 shows that nearly 4% of rural household and 23% of urban household possess computer.  Therefore the recent advancement in that direction will bring more and more gulfs and it is going to create a furore in near future. Hence there is indeed a dire need for building new capacities and capabilities of educational campuses as well as enabling the millions to access the facility. Every school of present time should be built not only by bricks or concrete but also by fiber optics. Each campus should be connected with high speed internet connections. Simultaneously it should be ensured that each student gets a chance to avail the facility. This process will require well integrated robust infrastructure. Only the government can facilitate it. Even if the scientists discover the vaccines for the COVID 19 and the world goes back to normalcy, the process must go on. It may be conceived as a backup system for emergency situations. But at the same time this system should be used partially during the normal environment too.

Now comes the most glaring question- who will fund the process and how to continue it? In this respect educational institutes, governments, private entities and community- all have to play their part. Governments have to develop the policy to ensure proper mobilization, utilization and implementation of funds and resources. Every year government aids the schools and colleges to construct building in the campuses. Now it should focus on building virtual classrooms. On the other hand some cyber cafés may be built in the villages which can act as a virtual classroom where locally students can gather and learn. To facilitate this programme government may think of providing computer or tablets to each student by redesigning various scholarship programmes. In this respect government can consider some partnership with some private players, who can certainly gain during this period of recession and come forward in this respect with some sort of benevolence. Community at large has to play a significant role to facilitate e-learning in each and every part of the country. The data of Internet and Mobile Association of India shows that there is a gender divide in internet usage. While 67% of men accessed to internet, only 33% women accessed it in 2019. There are scarce data regarding internet and computer usages among different communities and section of the society. But it is quite apparent that the unprivileged sections are not going to benefit from this process. To include them some innovative practices should be developed. But before that the government should embrace their duty in this respect. In 2020-21 Ministry of Human Resource Development has reduced its budget for digital e-learning to 469 crore from 604 crore in 2019. Though the real scenario is not the cheerful one, but for sure if the government remains indifferent in this situation India will continue to lag far behind in the global map of education.