A country like India, which is still in the urge of being a developed country, cannot afford a more virtual education system. Nowadays, getting a quality education has become essential. Due to the current situation where a worldwide pandemic has been declared, every nation, every continent has taken work and education into online platforms. While in India, some families were based on daily wages paid according to the labor they did the entire day. How can anybody expect them to get a job online or afford an online education? Since the day covid-19 got introduced in 2020 and the lockdown began, the majority population also began to starve.
India is not a poor country, but Indians do have a majority population that lies below the poverty line, and this covid situation even dragged many middle-class families into poverty or below the poverty line. This is a tough situation. People do not have enough to eat to survive. Therefore you can not expect them to buy gadgets for the kids for education neither is the government so economically strong to provide children free gadgets and free Internet. Apart from finance, there are many more reasons for the failure to provide education. According to a survey done by a top boarding school in India, 80% of our education failed during pandemics.
Here are some other relevant reasons for the education failure in the nation:
- The population is an undeniable factor in India. India is the second-largest populated country worldwide after China, even the US population count is less despite being an entire continent with about a 9.8million square km, and India covers a three times lesser area than the US. Each family at least consists of two to three children and even more, providing every individual an individual gadget or device is next to impossible. It is not just about gadgets but also about constant electricity supply and, most importantly, the availability of networks. Apart from the main city centers or technical hubs, there is hardly any area where one can find a proper internet supply and easy costs.
- India is a developing nation and highly backward in technical skills. There are teachers specifically in government schools and colleges who might teach brilliantly in a traditional offline class, but they are unaware of the working or the management of the online platforms. The teachers and the staff are indeed trying too hard to learn techniques of online teaching, but still, they lack professional training. The teachers are as uncomfortable in teaching online as the students are in learning online. A lot of disturbances are being faced from both the sender’s and receiver’s end which is hindering the flow of education, and children and the teachers are unable to sustain a healthy educational atmosphere around. The teachers in India also visited villages and houses of their students to teach them, to guide them but walking far distances and wandering into different areas is not safe for the teachers and the students during covid. Thus it eventually failed. Being a highly populated nation with financial deprivations, Indian education fails.
- The supply of educational material ad study courses cannot be done. The students can neither buy their study material nor can they visit the campus library or public library for their supplies. A few selected content is available online, but there is no proof about how relevant it is for them to study. Searching for content for a certain level of education is impossible on the Internet. For example, there are a few topics that are given in the syllabus, but it has just the introductory part, and the Internet is an ocean where if you need to find something, you need to dive a little deeper, which then develops ambiguity. The doubts and confusion that the details mentioned on the Internet created cannot be solved through the Internet. Also, you do not have your teacher around to help you.
- The Internet has its limitations. To provide proper elementary education and healthy balanced nutrition, schools have been providing mid-day meals to the children and students for the past many years. After the schools have been closed and students aren’t allowed to visit the campus, the balanced nutritious meal’s supply has also been shut. The scheme was initiated to target the students who come from deprived families or children who do not get enough meals during the day. The scheme attracted multiple students, and there was seen a good jump in the count of students to visit the school. The children visited in the greed of food and learned back education. Online you cannot give away the food or the ration.
- There is one more very important reason that is failing education in India. There are several government schools in India where a child with any family background could learn and get oneself educated for free, but it can be seen in many interior or rural parts of the nation that the building exists but not the teachers, if teachers exist they cannot be seen in the classroom, if they are seen there the government burdens them with several other responsibilities of like conduction election within the campus, conducting seminars which are not for students, etc. This was even done before covid arrived and is being done today by making school premises quarantine centers or vaccination centers etc.
