The world got hit by an unprecedented event in the year 2020. Sars-Cov-2 virus, popularly known as ‘CoronaVirus,’ started spreading rapidly from Wuhan city, which is located in China. As a result of which many countries have to go under lockdown to curb the spread of this virus. Institutions, offices, colleges, industries were all closed in this phase except for the essential activities. But the education sector has to find out some way and methods in order to continue with the student’s classes and exams. Schools in Dehradun implemented new ways of technology after the pandemic in order to continue with the student’s regular classes and exams. During this challenging time, 100% of the educational institutions shifted to the digital means of learning. The pattern and system which we used to follow earlier were not possible after the pandemic. Due to this, the institution came with various ideas to evaluate students’ growth, test them, and also, at the same time, educate them. Zoom, Google Meet, MS Teams saw a massive increase in the year 2020 because most of the classes were conducted on this platform.
Talking about exams, from writing in pen and paper inside a room with other students to giving exams from the comfort of our home using a mouse and laptop/pc. From giving academic presentations by projecting our slides on the whiteboard of our classroom to sharing screens on the platforms. Every single thing got changed drastically, which had both merits & demerits. Believe me or not, these things will still continue for the coming years as it is still not over yet. All the educational institutions, along with the government, are now bound to come up with new norms in the education system so that most of the things get digitized and make the overall system future-ready to face any such pandemics with ease. A plan B must always be ready to handle such challenges because you never know what is going to come next. This pandemic showed us how weak our education system is, where it entirely depends upon physical class and evaluation.
Every educational institution, from IIT to a small university in a remote district, is now coming up with various methods for continuing research and innovation through digital mode. But since we know nothing in this world is perfect and complete, and the digital way of teaching also has various drawbacks associated with it. So now we will talk about what actually got changed after the pandemic in our Education system. We will also cover the merits and demerits of any such changes, which we are going to talk about below.
Advantages Of New Digital Education Methods
- The class can be conducted from any remote place without worrying about getting a room or physical places
- A tutor can reach a large audience by adapting new methods like video conferencing.
- Students with illness can still opt to hear while resting on what is going in the class.
- A large number of students can be taught at one go, which becomes tough at physical classes.
- It even saves the traveling cost of the students to a great extent.
Disadvantages
- Internet may create problems with the quality of the class.
- Digital citizenship is not taught to almost 60-80& of students in India.
- Students from a remote area may always undergo connectivity issues as the network over there is not so developed.
- Every student cannot afford to buy a laptop or a mobile.
- Long classes may be uncomfortable for the eyes of the children.
- This mode of teaching may be irrelevant for students of vocational subjects and the other subjects which needs field presence & work,
What are the new norms that may come in the near future in the education sector?
Going Digital- After the pandemic, the Government Of India is promoting more & more digital learning along with all the private institutions. We should expect this to stay with us for a long time as it becomes really beneficial for the teachers as well as students. And most of the students gradually is getting a good internet connection, and also most of them also own a low-end Android device through which they can quickly attend classes.
New technique On Research & Innovation- More sophisticated ways which will eventually contain less physical contacts may be put up for the research & innovation sector because this is a thing which cannot be stopped and would not be worthy if it is done online.
New Way Of Evaluation- The traditional way of evaluating students, is changing these days from giving the internal tests to show your subject understandings through the presentation. This is actually becoming our new normal, and it is highly expected that it will also be implemented in the near future.
Significant events Like Convocation, College Fests Will Also Turn Digital- After the pandemic, we have seen many universities doing their convocation virtually, and the fests are also being conducted on the digital platforms. So this will eventually continue for more coming years.
