Education and Healthcare facilities – these two are the prime pillars of the growth and development of a country. The COVID-19 Pandemic has exposed loopholes in both of these sectors in most of the countries.

While most of the jobs have shifted to ‘Work from Home’ status, there has been a major shift in the education sector as well.

The offline classes in almost all schools, colleges, and other educational institutions have come to a halt. The term ‘Online Classes’ was not known and was not as famous as it is now. Most educational institutions are adopting this method of teaching and learning these days.

Challenges Of The Online Teaching-Learning Process

Online education has revolutionized the education system. New learning techniques, animations, videography, and recorded lectures have allowed the students to avail themselves of the facilities to a better learning platform.

The process of understanding through videos is much faster than listening to a teacher in class as you get a visual representation of what is being taught. Nobody knew that studying can be done right by sitting on your table in front of your laptop.

However, just as every coin has two sides, there are lots of challenges to this new trend of online classes. There has been a lack of skilled designers, animators, and video editors to make proper videos and lecture recordings.

A majority of teachers being a bit aged find it difficult to cope up with teaching on a laptop rather than the traditional chalk and board. As a result, they just tend to read out from pdfs and send it to the students to learn by themselves. Most of the students also face difficulty attending online lectures due to network connectivity issues. This is generally observed among students in rural areas.

Student mischiefs, which were common during offline classes, were a bit of mood refresher and mood changer, though it was always troublesome for teachers. In this online mode, however, the mischiefs and pranks have taken a greater toll and affected many online lectures.

The educational institutions have tried to put it under control. Still, it is found in many places, the camera and mic are being left on by accident, and private conversations are being leaked.

From a student’s perspective of view, the education system in India has failed miserably. Educational institutions have failed to exploit the advantages of the online teaching-learning process.

The students find themselves in vain even when they are securing high marks because others have secured much higher. Hopes are being lost and the lectures are being continuously monotonous.

Among these difficult times, many students have been undergoing mental health issues. However, the schools and colleges are just concerned with the completion of the courses rather than the overall development of the student and therefore, the students are being burdened with assignments all week.

The practicality of the lectures has been reduced to null and void. The practical experiments and laboratories that provided scope to the students for testing their knowledge are now reduced to just watching videos and writing assignments.

Deadlines are being overlapped and there is very little free time. It is a myth that online classes mean students get a lot of free time. On the other hand, it’s very strainful for the student itself to continuously sit in front of the screen for hours and then coping up with the writings. Self-study has been lost in this part.

The online teaching-learning process has a wide scope in the future. It’s an inevitable revolution in the education sector. However, both students and teachers should co-operate with each other and make this teaching-learning process a much better one than it is now.

But with the present scenario, the online mode of education is far away from being the new ‘normal’ in the field of education.

What are your views on the online teaching-learning process?

Comment down your views as a student, as a teacher, or as the general public.

Challenges Of The Online Teaching-Learning Process