By TFL Mawlong
Let me begin by quoting Lenin: “There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen”.
COVID-19 is smashing education with a little help from the lack of brilliant academic leadership in our state. We are overlooking a crucial point that e-learning is here to stay as an indispensable component of education, poor accessibility notwithstanding. Professor RC Khulad Committee constituted by UGC, in its recent report, clearly stated that the COVID-19-induced imposition of digital learning is part of the design to ensure that at least 25% of academic load will be handled online henceforth, indicating that ‘blended learning’(you may Google it) could be the new mode of regular education in India.
What Vladimir I. Lenin was referring to in the above quote, was the tendency for a society to remain stable on the surface for long periods, while problems continued to fester on the inside. In a similar overtone, during the long period of seeming stability in education, our acute educational problems continued to fester on the inside. The current situation in our education world is similar to what is called ‘punctuated equilibrium‘ (you may Google it) where suddenly rapid change takes place after nothing for a long time. So it is not surprising to see our education becoming chaotic ever since we embraced digital learning.
From the students’ perspective, the years of accumulated discontentment was fast replaced by an inescapable disillusionment following months of a brutally tough learning experience. On the one hand, they are freer than ever to make their own choices amidst the flooding entertainments. On the other hand, the compulsion to attend live classes in a congested environment (in many cases) and with a constant interruption of unstable network connectivity while anxiety levels are high makes them easily paralyzed by options at their disposal. They have free choices to make between scrolling Facebook, chatting or browsing and doing assignments, watching video lessons, or attending live classes. There’s a constant battle with the difficult and biased choices in their minds. Their focus on learning has derailed! Its augmented by other factors (discussed below). The crisis has rendered the students disillusioned! As a consequence, e-learning has not been met with much enthusiasm.
While it appears (and rightly so) that people are disillusioned with the online method of learning, in the current circumstances, the disillusionment is being co-engineered by other lesser discussed factors. On careful analysis, we can identify three chief factors that render the students disinterested and disillusioned and hence significantly brings down their engagement in e-learning systems offered by their schools or colleges. One is the uncertainty of examinations. While it may sound sensible to not study if the examination is not going to be held, the attitude highlights the fact that the majority of our students study only for the sake of examination, not for the sake of learning, and it defeats the purpose for which schools and colleges were established in the first place. Our schools and colleges have evolved into more like the ‘Degree Mills’ and less like the ‘Centers of Learning’. Two, is the rote learning education system which gives the students an illusion of mastery when they can reproduce the notes verbatim. Hence, class discussion and active-learning appear to be of secondary importance to the students. Three, is the lack of a formal and uniform structure of remote teaching.
While it is well within our capability to set up a formal and well-equipped e-learning system having the capability of seamless and highly interactive live classes (without using Zoom of course) we are choosing to either sit idle (by giving lame excuses) or remain content with sharing sub-standard and incomprehensible PDF notes via WhatsApp or web portals. Besides, in many cases, the School and College authorities have failed to formally and emphatically push the community to actively engage in e-learning classes. E-learning wins very little attention of most School and College Principals (many of whom are not only intellectually bankrupt but also spineless), who might otherwise be critical of unconventional digital methods to enhance quality education, but have no problem in accepting the unessential and fancy Smart ID card and Biometric attendance system.
So how can we manage this chaotic episode of education? Firstly, as hinted above, the reason why students are unenthusiastic about e-learning is that there’s nothing great about our curriculum that will gravitate them to the ‘actual learning effort’. The majority of the students are attending classes only for socializing, to maintain the compulsory attendance, and because they are chronically trapped under a culture of dictated notes (no matter how bookish and substandard the notes are). As aforementioned, they study just for the final examination. So tell me one good reason why a ‘habitual crammer’ should attend the ‘informal’ live classes or watch those passive video lessons when the exam-oriented-rote-learning notes have been shared? I hope you can see the problem here.
Hence if we want to see changes, we should creatively re-imagine our curriculum, and formally and enthusiastically adopt blended learning. For education’s sake, we should not wait for the HRD or UGC to give their guidelines/directives. I believe we can find our own decentralized and tailored solutions within the existing framework and adjust it with the HRD or UGC guidelines when needed later.
In the recently held National Virtual Seminar on ‘Quality Online Education’ organized by VIT (Vellore Institute of Technology) which I attended, Dr. Srikanta Swamy of NAAC (National Assessment and Accreditation Council) emphasized the importance of engaging, interactive, and illustrative teaching in online classes to make them appealing and effective. Unfortunately, the PowerPoint presentation which many teachers are using can hardly make teaching illustrative let alone interactive. I would like to emphasize that, teachers can be trained to design and deliver excellent illustrative and interactive online pedagogies. However, even if such pedagogies could be planned and designed, the illustrative and interactive lessons unfortunately cannot be effectively delivered with just a Zoom, Google Meet, Google Classroom, or YouTube live class. There’s need to set up an ‘engaging’ and ‘well equipped’ e-learning system which none of the academic institutions in Shillong at present have. And mind you the pre-recorded videos can never be interactive unless the interactive elements are integrated into them (which would require the right software) or they are smartly coupled with interactive elements on the specially designed portals.
Though education institutions have responded responsibly to the COVID-19 crisis by exploring different methods of learning outside of the institution, there have been no ‘orientation programs’ to orient the students. So basically what students are seeing is just a disorganized and desperate attempt of the institutions to ensure instructional continuity. The students are neither formally enlightened as to why they need to adapt and on how to effectively use e-learning nor to emphatically encourage them to adapt to a new learning method. They are just told that because of COVID-19 there will be e-learning (whatever that may mean to students) which all students should participate in. Moreover, with the sheer neglect that accompanies our illustration-less and incomprehensible materials, we are seriously downgrading the efficacy of e-learning as an important component of regular education.
So over and above a non-existent academic leadership, the teachers’ negligence is making matters worse. In the end, we are effectively shifting the entire burden of education and its cost (for the printing of substandard notes, internet charges, etc) onto a student.
I would, therefore, like to suggest that our academic institutions stop taking students for granted. Our students need proper orientation and the institutions must arrange for that. I would also suggest the academic institutions ‘formally’ adopt a blended learning system that is thoroughly engaging for students and to ‘emphatically’ discuss with the students about it. Besides, we also need to develop a solution to hand-hold marginalized students who can’t afford access to e-learning. And I implore the teaching fraternity to root out their negligence.
The message won’t be lost in translation if authorities themselves lead the way. Perhaps the school and college Principals should start delivering periodical short video messages to the student community. The heads of institutions have powerful, invisible hands to push the students to do the right thing in a situation like this. Their simple one-minute video message (not the lifeless bulk text messages!) can potentially dissipate despair, and motivate and inspire one and all.
To conclude, with online learning becoming paradigmatic, there’s need for a sensible and balanced approach to education. Regaining control over our education very much rests on dismantling our failed curriculum and approach. In this regard, as a first step, I implore upon teachers to stop behaving as ‘controllers’ (which they do for gaining the so-called fear and respect of students). Rather they should openly and sincerely try to be co-learners’. In ‘modern education’ teachers must learn to ‘co-learn with students’ because that is exactly what we need to do to inspire the students; to build real trust, and to encourage them to adapt and study beyond the curriculum.
(The author believes that the vision and innovation of the youth is the only thing that can revolutionize basic education and academic skills in Meghalaya. The author calls upon the learned and passionate individuals to come out of their comfort zones and do what the established institutions have failed to do.)