COVID-19 showed resilience of Indian education sector, fortitude of our students

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Imagine that you looked out your window and saw your neighbour's college-going son staring at the bushes outside his house. You would probably think: “Poor kid, he may be losing his mind, being cooped up inside during his college years.” However, if he happens to be a botany student, chances are that he was attending a practical class. As colleges pulled out all the stops to ensure continued learning, botany students were asked to study the plants in their neighbourhood.

V. Prabhavathi, associate professor of botany, Shivaji College, University of Delhi, said that during online sessions, faculty demonstrated “live lab specimens” (plants) and supplemented it through informational videos. In subsequent classes, students were asked to bring specimens. They were also randomly asked to give demonstrations of specific aspects of the experiment. She said that compared with lab work, self exploration evoked greater interest among students.

Lack of access to the online medium continues to be a problem. Even when measures are taken to give access, training children in virtual learning is becoming a challenge.
[As part of counselling] students were asked to transform loneliness into solitude through self learning and growth. —Shivani Manchanda, counsellor, Student Wellness Centre, IIT Bombay

In other lab-intense subjects, short video clips were used, along with quizzes on the tools and techniques, chemicals and reagents, and the outcomes of experiments. Practicals for computer science programmes were moved to online platforms, where the coding skills of students could be tested. Virtual labs, including the government’s vlab.co.in, were used extensively for a variety of subjects. So were simulations and case studies.

However, despite the best efforts of colleges, some offline sessions remained a necessity. Also, the basics of handling lab equipment could not be imparted to first-year students. Luckily, institutes managed to schedule offline lab sessions in the respite between the first and second waves. But, exams could not be completed before the surge; the incomplete exams were held in viva-voce mode. “Neither teachers nor students were satisfied with this curtailed experience,” said Rajendra Shinde, principal, St. Xavier’s College (Autonomous), Mumbai. “We plan to redo certain practicals as and when possible.”

Apart from the ‘practical’ problems created by Covid-19, a major issue was the much curtailed social experience of students, especially first-years. As University Grants Commission Chairman D.P. Singh, told THE WEEK: “Campus life is a new social experience. Meeting and mingling with fellow students and teachers inculcates curiosity, inquisitiveness, creativity and competitiveness. It also strengthens harmony and fraternity and, more importantly, enables students to appreciate and accommodate differences of opinions.”

It is not difficult to imagine how much first-year students were looking forward to all that and more. However, they now seem to have come to terms with reality. Jojo Joseph, 18, a history student at Loyola College, Chennai, only stepped into the institute’s vast and vibrant campus earlier this year, when it was opened briefly, in a restricted way, to give the students offline access to faculty and the library. “There is a feeling that my second year, too, may be online,” he said. “But, given the scenario, it is the best alternative.” He added that even if offline classes resumed, his mother was apprehensive about sending him to college.

Even for the senior batches, Covid-19 was a bitter pill to swallow. Sanjana Saxena, 19, a second year journalism and mass communications student at Amity University, Lucknow, said: “Mentally, it was difficult for me to stay away from the campus; to be away from friends and teachers.” She added that she fully appreciated the Covid-19 regulations only after she and her family tested positive in April 2021. Saxena, still on multivitamins post the infection, managed to finish her year-end exams online. She is full of praise for her faculty and the university. “They were regularly inquiring about my health and even gave me the option to appear for the exams at a later date,” she said.

Such support from institutions has been crucial in helping the students cope with the stress caused by the pandemic. Psychologists and counsellors, too, were thrust into the thick of the battle and rose to the challenge magnificently. Shivani Manchanda, a counsellor at the Student Wellness Centre, IIT Bombay, said the focus of counselling outreach was handling stress, anxiety and fear. “A change in perspective was also offered to students—they were asked to transform loneliness into solitude through self learning and growth.”

Holistic learning has suffered immensely, especially in professional courses like management programmes. A. Venkat Raman, professor at the Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi, said that the foundation courses for the first-year students were extremely critical and despite the hybrid nature of online courses, there was still a sense of void among the faculty. “Subject-specific learning for the final year students is based on interaction with the faculty and in undertaking research projects.” Online interaction, he added, is no substitute to learning informally over a cup of tea or in the college cafeteria. Subhasis Chaudhuri, director, IIT Bombay, also said that the quality of learning takes a hit in the virtual mode, “more so for students who are not toppers”.

Lack of access to the online medium continues to be a problem. Even when measures are taken to give access, training children in virtual learning is becoming a challenge. “Students, especially the ones from rural backgrounds, struggle to cope with digital classrooms or online-proctored exams,” said S.R.R. Senthilkumar, principal, Sona College of Technology, Salem. But, as Anil Dattatraya Sahasrabudhe, chairman, All India Council for Technical Education, told THE WEEK: “If a level-playing field can be created, it is only through digital technology. Because in order to have education for all, if you have to build brick-and-mortar infrastructure and induct a huge number of faculty, it will be expensive. The online mode is much more economical.”

Despite all that the country’s education sector has been able to achieve during the pandemic, the first and, sometimes, only, concern for Indian parents would be placements. Most top b-schools have maintained that their placements were not hit too badly by Covid-19. Venkat Raman of FMS said: “We did not face difficulties in the corporate placements of our final year MBA students. All of them are raring to join their prospective employers.”

Aman Mittal, additional director, Lovely Professional University, Punjab, said that more than 7,000 placement offers were made to students of LPU during the pandemic. “We also created [online] internship opportunities,” he said. “Our teams spoke to companies in various domains, including IT, fashion and hotel management. This helped in creating additional opportunities. ”

Sahasrabudhe said placement figures for engineering colleges affiliated to the AICTE had reduced slightly. “Because many companies were not fully running during the lockdown,” he said. “Even internships have been affected because the number of companies which allow students on their premises decreased. But, I am very happy that two major IT companies have taken 40,000 students from our engineering colleges. So it is not as bad as what we were expecting.”

“Once industrial activity gets back in full throttle, I am sure there will be a huge requirement for jobs and students will get placements,” he said. His optimism is almost infectious. And, considering the resilience the education sector showed in the face of a global crisis, optimism is indeed warranted.

With Sneha Bhura

POINTS TO PONDER

Practical solutions

While the theory classes were comfortably shifted online, it was a real challenge to cope with the practical sessions. We did try to use simulations whenever possible, but in some cases, we had to wait for the university to permit strategically spaced, offline, practical sessions, when the situation allowed it. In courses like psychology, we have tried to use online modules with the same concepts as in actual therapy sessions today. We also used videos and case studies as tools.

Sam Paul

Director, Krupanidhi Group of Institutions, Bengaluru

Continuous evaluation

We do not have final exams. Evaluation is continuous in each module of every course via assignments, projects, presentations and tests. Field trips, however, have not been conducted.There can be mental and social issues because of the pandemic. We have been organising student meetings with course heads and management—deans and the director—to lessen the anxiety of our students. We are in a global problem and we hope that normalcy and safety will soon return.

J.B. Mistry

Dean (academic), Xavier Institute of Communications, St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai

Portal power

We have created a portal of study material. This is a library, onto which content from all subjects were uploaded. There are self-evaluation questions and practice questions. It also has a discussion forum, where all 8,000 students can communicate. The portal tracks the hours spent, number of tests taken, questions in the discussion forum and so on, and assigns points. These points will give us an idea of how much a student has studied for each course and outcomes in marks are correlated.

K. Sundararaman

Chief executive officer, Sri Krishna Institutions, Coimbatore

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