Have we all ever imagined that after the passing of 2019, how many changes the year 2020 is going to bring? In the morning, children get up with rubbing their eyes and get ready and go to school. But the year 2020 was going to change the prediction of the past hundred years. The internet facility, products of modernity, had told us the name of distance learning but some one percent of the people would have seen its implementation. There’s nothing more common than this at the present time. From elementary education to higher education, it is going on for the last 1 year. The corona epidemic embodied words like social distancing and isolation. As a result, people put up no outing boards on all the exit doors. This is the first such incident in the modern history of the world when parents are asking children not to stay away from mobile and gadgets. Now the time is such that it has become impossible to study without mobile and internet. All classes, even examinations, are being conducted online. The Internet has emerged as the biggest medium of education in 2020-21. Even when the situation becomes normal in the coming time this process of teaching well continue to a large extent.
n the present period, this change in the education sector has also started expanding it. Now we have a lot of digital platform for reading lessons. According to the data released by the ministry of education, 33 crore students have been continued with the help of digital, online radio.
Comprehensive initiative like PM- E-Vidya have been taken to students of the country. Along with this, program like Diksha, Swayamprabha, IIT Pal, Shikshavani Podcast, Sign Language started. Apart from this, through digital education,unacademy, gradeup, Byju reached among the people at large. If seen, it is like a technological revolution in the field of education students sitting in remote village is studying and learning like a student studying in hitech city. All these facts are correct in the own place but the reality is that online education is being seen as a compulsion in the Corona Pandemic. It is not possible to compare it with physical school and classroom. Even though it provides equal opportunity to all, it has been miles away from traditional education in terms of quality. The sudden outbreak of pandemic in 2020 did not give time for the development of technology and the internet. As a result, education in 2020-21 has been far out of reach of rural India. At the same time it is also impractical. If we we look at the figures as of 30 September 2020 about 1.077 billion students have been affected due to School closures due to the Pandemic. According to UNICEF, 61.6% of population globally have been affected due to lockdown.
The problem of gender discrimination has also been seen along with the decline in the level of education in 2020 and 21. Even today, in the Indian context, a difference is made between providing mobile and internet facilities to boys and girls.Its effect is being seen on the percentage of girls in education. At the same time, about 70% of the people in economically weaker families believed that due to the epidemic, employment and business are in danger and there is no money to eat. In such a situation, bypassing the education of girls was seen on a large scale.Of this, 37% of girls are likely to never return to school. Apart from all these things, a generation has been locked in the house for the last one year.This is having a negative effect on the mind and body of the students. It cannot be denied that online education is not an option for all children.
However, at present, there is no option for this. But in the coming times when the situation becomes normal then it will be challenging to work on the quality of education.Because more than 1 year has passed and there has been a lot of change in the routine of the students in the field of education. It will take time to get the train back on track again.
(The author is Vice Chairman of SR Group of Institution, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. Views expressed are personal and do not reflect the official position or policy of Financial Express Online.)
Courtesy – Finacial Express