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In the novel Coronavirus or Covid-19: many names were given to this deadly disease. One that shut down businesses, institutes, economies, and even entire countries almost overnight. A pandemic that forced everybody inside their houses or drove them to the hospitals, affecting every social and economic institute all over the globe. One of the major institutes was EDUCATION.

Impact Of COVID 19

For primary and middle schools, the situation was easily dealt with due to the lack of any major examinations. They followed the government’s instructions without giving it a second thought and put a hold on their classes. Secondary schools, on the other hand, had to face some complications due to the class 10th and 12th board examinations. They had to make a humungous decision as they held their students’ futures in their hands and are solely responsible for any hiccups which they cannot afford. Recently, there have been reports of cancellation of said examinations by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) for both the classes but the Indian Council for Secondary Education (ICSE) has only decided to cancel the class 10th boards while leaving the status for class 12th in uncertainty. This came as a much-awaited relief for secondary schools and their pupils.

New Version of Education

Universities and colleges all over the globe faced this crisis as well but on a yet bigger scale compared to secondary educational institutes. They have a greater responsibility of producing the future leaders and workforce of their countries, respectively. Putting their semesters on hold or even ending them early was not an option unless they were willing to risk their reputation by adding to the incompetency of the general population. The solution they chose to tackle this problem was “Online Classes”.

Colleges and universities around the world started conducting classes in the, now well-known, online mode, keeping up with the times, trying to impart their education and experience as best they could without being physically present. Teachers worked tirelessly to do their jobs while students used this time to avail themselves of endeavors that could not have been availed had they been attending college in the pre-covid society. Students taking on multiple internships at a time and participating in every possible event they can has become the norm which is bound to give them a glowing resume by the end of the year. Such tremendous progress has been seen all over the world, across universities but these, sadly, are only the pointers for the proposition of the pressing debate, that is online classes with the opposition holding much better cards.

Cons of New Version

Not all students take their online classes seriously, without paying any heed to the fact that the knowledge they could gain might prove to be crucial in the future and the lack of it may even lead to their career’s downfall. Students often join their classes just for the sake of attendance and if it was not a requirement, they might choose to not attend classes altogether. On the other hand, for the more studious ones, it often becomes difficult to grasp the concepts being taught and causes them to lose interest in the subject. But this does not at all mean that only students are the cause of such disruption in education- Teachers showing disinterest and not caring about their students causes harm not only to their reputations but also to their pupils. Even if they try their best to disseminate their knowledge, it is not the real deal that one would receive in the offline mode of classes.

Need to be back

Covid has given the entire world a really hard time and when I say this, I think I speak for everyone, we all want this atrocity to end, to go back out into the world without having to wear a mask first, and do everything that we did every day but never felt grateful for but now that it has been snatched from us. Even though getting everything back to normal is not within reach yet, I feel that a few things might still be very much attainable. The first ray of hope was seen at the beginning of 2021 when the 1st wave of Covid-19 ended. A lot of things achieved near-normalcy. But educational institutes could not decide the mode of classes in such a short time and turned out to be the smarter to hold out as soon enough the 2nd wave hit. This meant that it was only a matter of time before the situation became better, enough for the world to go back to the way it was. More hope came in the form of various vaccines being created almost simultaneously in various countries like Covishield, Covaxin, Pfizer-BioNTech, etc.

Changes

When campuses across the world do open up, everyone knows that certain changes will have to be permanently made into their lifestyles. Masks will become like smartphones, always to be kept on the person, and social distancing in public places will become essential to ensure a decrease in the spread of the dreadful virus. Being fully vaccinated will be a requirement to visit any public place or use any means of public transport. But the elephant in the room remains. How will the universities get back on track after this dry spell? Students have missed out on a lot of experiences they would have gotten only in the offline mode. Teachers have not gotten to know their students outside of their screens. The quality of education has overall dropped drastically since carelessness has been exhibited by teachers and students alike. As a result, teachers cannot recognize their students’ problems as well as they once could, and students hesitate before approaching their teachers for any problems they face on the academic front.

Present

As of now, there is no viable solution to this problem and on a personal note, I can come up with only a tedious one. Higher education institutes would need to run quick recaps of all the courses they taught and conduct small tests if not full-fledged examinations. Although this is neither an economic nor efficient method, it is most definitely an effective one. Universities and colleges will need to make some minor changes in their teaching plans to accommodate for the disregarding of knowledge during this pandemic.

Many of us first-year students have not even had the privilege of seeing our colleges with our own eyes, sufficing with only images off the internet. The much-awaited freshman’s party will not be a freshman’s party anymore which might not happen at all. Entering our colleges after fighting the guard for not carrying our ID cards might never come around. Sitting around the canteen with our friends laughing and having fun might just remain a dream. We might miss out on so many experiences altogether but let us not end on such a gloomy note. I hope we, the students, receive the higher education we were meant to and make the most of the post-covid college experience which will surely come soon.

References:

World Health Organization, who lists additional covid-19-vaccine-for emergency use and issues interim policy recommendations,2020.

Illustrations By Tanishq Nakra

CURSOR 5.0 | VOLUME 3 ISSUE 2, JULY 2021

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