HOME CLASSES

During early March 2020, the signs of Covid-19 was beginning to surface everywhere.  Some of the Private schools started shutting down to avoid young children contracting this virus.  By 2^nd week of March, many State Governments announced closure of Schools and Colleges till 31^st March 2020.  The Janata Curfew came in and it was followed by Lockdown versions 1 to 4.  This has left these educational institutions close indefinitely.

Some schools had started using Technology to continue giving assignments to Students as soon as they were asked to shut down.  The activity was more of an assignment than any real lecture.  By the beginning of April, some schools resorted to taking lectures online.  The Colleges were not to be left behind and they also joined the bandwagon.

The demonetization gave birth to Digital Payments and the COVID-19 gave birth to eLearning.  Both are key turning points in Modern Indian History.  Though eLearning was present earlier it was more of a support to the regular curriculum – a co-curriculum.  But now, the birth of the Home Classes in the form of eLectures has changed the dynamics completely.  The new-born concept did not require any incubation period.  It was up and running and at a dangerously great speed.

The initial days of the use of eLectures were exciting for the Students as well as the Teachers as it was a new experience.  Never did they think that this might be the new way of life.  The Home Classes come with their own set of Challenges.  It was done in a haste and purely for economic purposes. A process implemented without any thought.  Let us look at some of the inconveniences it is causing to Students, Teachers and Parents.

• The Students who are already stay put in the house the whole day with the same set of people are forced to go through their classes at home in a divertive atmosphere. 
• It is easy for any student to just login and even watch a movie.  Adding Video, reduces the bandwidth and hence many eLectures are done without Video.  So, no real control on what the Students are doing.
• The discipline of being on time for a lecture is missing. 
• When most of the Adults who are forced to work from home are finding it difficult to concentrate and perform, it is surely difficult for the students to concentrate and learn.
• The Purpose of exams and Tests sound irrelevant as it is difficult to monitor whether the Students are copying or writing on their own.
• Not everyone has good internet connection at home – be it a student or a Teacher.  One need to think beyond Urban India.
• Not all Teachers have a dedicated space or table at home to take a proper lecture without any disturbance.
• Not all Parents have dedicated laptop or PC for young children.  Especially if there are more children, normally, only one Device is allocated for all of them.  With simultaneous class timings for all the children, allocation of devices is also a struggle for many.
• Noise pollution from the neighborhood of any of the Participants, especially that of the Teacher is going to make the lecture miserable for the rest of them.
• It is difficult to do mono-lecturing in front of a Computer or a Mobile.  The intellectual connect, the Body Language, the emotions, all are lost when a teacher conducts a lecture online.
• When we are discouraging more use of Mobiles and Laptops at young age, to protect the Eyes, the Student has to spend lot of hours on either of these, if they are to take the Home classes seriously.
• Many teachers and students agree that the results of Tests conducted post lockdown are not that satisfactory.  It surely does not provide a clear indication of where the Student stands in terms of the subject matter as there are lot of loopholes in organizing Tests.
• The Parents now have a more difficult job of chasing their ward and making them sit on time for the Home Classes.  Earlier the Parent had to just struggle once in the morning to send their young wards to school on time.  But now, the parents must go through the trouble for every session.

The only thing that is pushing this thing going is the benefit that it brings to the educational Institutions.  It helps them collect the fees.  This is perhaps the one of the very few industries that has gone unaffected due to the economic lockdowns.  The rush to complete the pending activities of the previous academic year is only to start collecting the fees for the new academic year.  Some of them have even collected Transportation Charges for the whole year. 

The Parents have paid fees for a normal working period.  By having few hours (mostly 2 hours) of home classes, the Institutions try to convince the Parents of having fulfilled their promise.  Home Classes is just an eye wash by the Institutions to make the Parents believe that they real care about the Students future.  The excuse given by most of the Institutions is that they do not want to waste few months of a Student’s career and allow him to lose competitive edge.  The reality is few months of delay is not going to have any significant change in any students’ career. 

It is also widely heard that few Institutions have enforced or considering enforcing a pay cut for Teachers as the Teachers are not working full time.  When they receive, they like to get full payment from Parents and when they have to pay, they act petty by reducing the Pay and try to pocket the differential.  All these are happening openly and no one to question them. 

Why is it so important that the new academic year should start by June/July?  What is the Significance?  Why can’t it be from any other month?  The Summer and Winter Holidays are different in various parts of India.  Why should the academic year end before the Summer?  These are unexplained for years.  The irony is many schools even collect Fees before the end of the Financial Year on 31^st of March.  So, it is not linked to Financial Year as well, assuming it would help the Institutions in filing their returns.  Getting XII grade exam/Undergraduate results by May/June does not help any student join any Foreign University immediately unless the necessary qualifying exams are cleared 6 months in advance.  So, it is not designed to meet any overseas schedule. 

  

We have a chance now to change our Academic Year.  Our Students can also be saved from the Home Classes which does not help them much.  We can save them from any possible psychological issues.  If we lose this opportunity, we will be stuck with this wrong system forever.  A point worth considering.