Education is expected to level the playing field for all, but the new mode of teaching is affecting different students in different ways. Online classes have come across to be an inequitable solution for students to continue with their studies in the ongoing pandemic- an ‘act of God’.
While jobs, schools, colleges, and everything is shifting to the digital medium, not all houses have adequate numbers of devices to accommodate it all.
To attend a day of classes requires huge data consumption and costs a lot of money. Colleges aren’t doing anything for students who cannot afford such things. We aren’t using much of the infrastructure of our campuses, but we are still paying the full fee, not proportional, in the name of ‘maintenance cost’. This entire system has made students so helpless, we are expected to understand the ‘unprecedented’ situation but nobody is actually trying to understand ours.
These unprecedented times and social isolation have resulted in mental isolation, loneliness, and increased anxiety amongst students.
This shift in learning mode involves other major stakeholders too, one of them being the teachers. Professors have risen to the challenge with fortitude by getting accustomed to the new digital mode of teaching and developing the two way interaction. The screen time and other issues have spiked for them alike.
Education is supposed to be the great equalizer, creating a leveled playing field for all sections of the society. With the new methodologies in place, the exclusion is going to be a pertinent issue. Localized solutions and different methods must be developed to ensure that each student has access to knowledge.
Keeping in mind the retention capacity and screen time for students, the administration must reduce the number of classes per week for each paper by one and the time period should be restricted to 40 minutes per lecture.apart from these any other solution in benefit of students will also be appreciated.
This is not at all a politically motivated message rather the serious and true emotion of students.
