The Covid-19 pandemic has put a standstill to regular schools and colleges. The Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi on 24th March announced a nationwide lockdown to fight against coronavirus or COVID-19. Hence, schools and colleges all over India had to shut. Some state governments had already ordered schools and colleges to send the students back to their homes and close down the campus. 

Since the new academic session was to start in schools, they did not have a choice but to start online classes for students. Colleges too went ahead with the online teaching as they too had to complete the semester. Online classes may sound fun but it comes with its challenges. Some of these challenges and issues are raised by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). 

Concerns raised by UNICEF and UNESCO

E-learning has arguably helped educational institutes around India beat the Covid-19 lockdown to “push ahead with the academic calendar.” But experts including those at UNESCO and UNICEF have raised concerns w.r.t. these online classes.  

While a few experts are worried about the potential dangers of longer internet exposure for younger students, some of them are scared that this digital shift may alienate economically backward students who do not possess the technology required for online lessons. 

On 15 April, UNICEF said that “millions of children are at increased risk of harm as their lives move increasingly online during the lockdown in the Covid-19 pandemic”. 

As per UNICEF’s statement, “the internet exposure puts children at the risk of online sexual exploitation and grooming, as predators look to exploit the Covid-19 pandemic”. 

A greater internet exposure leads to online grooming which is a serious concern in this social media age. It involves mischievous and predatory adults who build fake online relationships with gullible children and trick or pressure them into different kinds of sexual behaviour.

UNICEF executive director Henrietta Fore says that “under the shadow of Covid-19, the lives of millions of children have temporarily shrunk to just their homes and their screens. We must help them navigate this new reality.”

UNESCO published a report on 21st April, which highlighted another major concern regarding the online classes. The report said, “Half of the total number of learners — some 826 million (82.6 crores) students — kept out of the classroom by the Covid-19 pandemic, do not have access to a household computer and 43 per cent (706 million or 70.6 crores) have no internet at home at all, at a time when digital distance learning mediums are used to ensure educational continuity in the vast majority of countries.” 

A Stark Reality

Now even though the above-mentioned concerns are very serious, educational institutions have no choice but to conduct classes online. But as already stated above not everyone can afford online education. There are various reasons for this, the prominent one being, lack of internet in households. According to a National Sample Survey report, “less than 15 percent of rural Indian households (and 42 percent urban ones) have access to the Internet.” This gives us an idea that the majority of students are not able to get the education they rightfully deserve. The fact that not many poor households can even afford a smartphone is also a major concern. 

The other issue is the technological issue. According to a report published in The Indian Express, the University of Hyderabad did an in-house survey of around 2,500 students on issues pertaining to online teaching. The results showed that 90 percent of the respondents have a mobile phone but only about 63 percent of them could access online classes infrequently or they could not attend at all. 40 percent of the surveyed students reported unreliable connectivity as being a major deterrent while 30 percent of them cited the cost of data as an issue. 10 percent, again a significant number of students, reported uncertain electricity supply as a concern.

Other Problems with Online Classes

As is quite evident from the figures above that many students in India cannot access online education because of a lack of internet. There is an illusion among those in urban areas that the internet has reached every nook and corner of our country but a report by NITI Aayog, called “Strategy For New India@75” highlighted that at least 55,000 villages in India don’t even have mobile network coverage. 

One area which has been ignored to an extent is stereotypes associated with using mobile phones in rural areas. According to a report in Newsclick, Gaurav Sikka, assistant professor of geography at Lalit Narayan Mithila University in Darbhanga, Bihar, said that “the online mode of teaching is widening the social and gender divide.” He further said, “I teach a majority of students who hail from conservative families where the parents have no idea that the students can take classes online. Thus, they are denying the girl students access to mobile phones.”

This gap between the haves and have nots has become a major hindrance in providing education to most of the students. Governments in the past came up with the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 or RTE under which education was free for all the students under the age of 6 to 14. Some state governments did extremely well under the RTE but many of them did not focus much. 

Now under RTE, it’s the duty and responsibility of the states to provide the basic infrastructure to students so that no student suffers because of lack of facility. But still, government schools all over India are struggling to conduct classes, and the schools which have been able to conduct classes see a very low turnout. 

The elite schools in urban areas initially had trouble making the switch to online teaching but since then, they have been able to take regular online lessons. Although students are not facing connectivity issues as such, they certainly feel online teaching is no match for physical classes. The students feel that it’s difficult to interact with teachers and the teachers feel the same way too. Teachers say that they developed a methodology over the years to teach students in a physical classroom but they now have to adjust to online teaching. They say that they cannot figure out during a class if the students are attentive or not and also subjects like mathematics cannot be taught online because it requires a lot of practice and hence it is difficult to monitor each student during the online lesson. 

Conclusion and Suggestions

It’s pretty unclear what lies ahead and no one can predict anything at this stage, so the need of the hour is that the state governments take all the necessary steps to provide the basic facilities to students so that they can continue with their education. Internet penetration can’t happen overnight and students too can’t become tech-savvy in a day so it is suggested that classes be recorded and broadcasted through television channels to students in rural areas. Doordarshan the state broadcaster could be used for this purpose. At the same time, the state government must ensure that there are enough television sets in the area for the students. 

Along with this, the school administration must prepare themselves and better internet facilities so that in due course a better education could be delivered to students. These steps along with the students’ zeal to learn will definitely make India stand out from the rest of the world. 

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