How a virus turned the classroom upside down
NEW DELHI: Ram Singh is staring at an uncertain future. A visually impaired postgraduate student at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) moved to his home in Rajasthan’s Sri Ganganagar district when the government announced a nationwide lockdown in March. Since then, the university has held semester examinations twice, but the finalyear Masters student of International Relations has failed to appear both times, due to connectivity snags and lack of online resources.
The 25-year-old said the majority of his study material, including his laptop which has reading assistive devices, is back in his hostel room on campus. “I have been using my sister’s laptop for the last 10 months but it does not have the reading software,” he said.
Singh’s father is a farmer and his mother is a homemaker. The lockdown and the pandemic have been difficult on all of them, but especially on him because his mobility has been restricted. “Also, it’s restricted because of the lack of internet. In our area, the connectivity is so poor. One can’t attend an online class without it getting disconnected,” he said.
Many of his friends couldn’t appear in the first online exam, conducted on August-September, but managed in the second iteration of the examination, held this month. “But I can’t even go to cyber cafés since I would require human assistance,” he said.
University authorities said they have already given multiple opportunities for students to appear in exams and complete the academic year. “In case some students are still left behind, the university will help them. It’s been an unprecedented year and the administration is helping students in every way,” said a senior administrative official.
Singh hoped the university gives him another chance, with a pen-andpaper examination. “I can only take admission in any other course after completing my semester. Otherwise, I will have to drop a year,” he said. He is not alone in his fear.
The pandemic upended academic calendars across the country as fears of infection forced authorities to shut schools and colleges and shift all teaching online. Disputes about national tests reached the Supreme Court, and board examination dates for the following year have still not been finalised. Thousands of students — mainly from lower-income backgrounds — were forced to drop out of school as a contracting economy hurt family incomes and made paying fees difficult.
Anxiety around the virus and its transmission also revolutionised teaching methods and how we study, from the elementary to the graduate level. Classrooms became small square boxes on a zoom call, classroom chatter became encrypted chat boxes and daily attendance became a sign-in password.
“We are definitely not going back to a pre-Covid style of learning even after schools reopen. Education will be blended, interdisciplinary and integrated,” said Jyoti Arora, principal of Mount Abu Public School in Rohini. “The pandemic has changed the education sector forever.”
Arora explained that the pandemic initially caught teachers on the wrong foot as everyone was not skilled in using digital tools and online learning lacked a structured environment.
“But this challenge was eventually turned into an opportunity by introducing experiential learning, art integration and critical thinking aspect to the virtual mode curriculum,” she added. Some of the most anxious were final-year students in high schools and colleges: the former over competitive exams and the latter over job prospects, term-end tests and higher education abroad.
“There is a general sense of despondency and gloom in final-year students as they face difficulty in scheduling their career,” said Tanvir Aeijaz, an associate professor of Political Science at Delhi University’s Ramjas College. “Those who applied abroad aren’t sure about admissions and mode of studies. While many made changes in plans, some started higher education online,” he added.
The effects of the pandemic-hit academic year are likely to be felt for years. Nearly 24 million children globally are at risk of not returning to school next year, UNICEF estimated in August; girls may be disproportionately affected.
An October World Bank report estimated that the prolonged closure of schools may cause a loss of $400 billion in India’s future earnings.
The brunt of this disruption may be borne by children from weaker backgrounds, who lost access to assured meals, free textbooks and other facilities.
“There is an immense loss of learning among such children. Prolonged closure of schools and financial crises wrought by the lockdown has pushed a lot of poor children into child labour,” said Sanjay Gupta, director of CHETNA (Childhood Enhancement Through Training and Action), a Delhi-based non-governmental organisation.