Preparedness of Higher Education

There has never been a greater challenge faced by the education system worldwide than the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. This challenge is felt even greater in countries like India, which despite having a robust educational system, has historically been slow to upgrade its infrastructure and embrace online teaching. At the recent launch of a report titled ‘Preparedness of Higher Education for Online Education 2021’ organised by the Association of Indian Universities (AIU) and Higher Education Research-based organisation QASPIR, eminent educationalists Dr Pankaj Mittal, Secretary General, AIU; Prof G. Thiruvasagam, President Elect, AIU; and Prof K K Aggarwal, Chairman, National Board of Accreditation speak about the response of the education sector in India to the obstacles placed by the Covid-19 pandemic and the learnings from this unprecedented period in Indian educational history. Corporate Citizen brings you the riveting learnings

"More than half of the universities, both government and private are not equipped with smart classrooms, more than 50% of universities do not have projectors, and 65% of universities work with less than 1Gbps internet speeds"

- Dr Pankaj Mittal

Dr Pankaj Mittal: When the lockdown was first imposed early last year and all universities and colleges were forced to close, all of us were worried about the future of higher education in the country. All of a sudden, everyone had to shift to the online mode even though most of our universities were not prepared for it, as physical education has been the norm in India historically. When the move to online was done, we came across several challenges. The first being that our infrastructure was lacking. The second was the capacity building of teachers. That is when we collaborated with QASPIR to come up with a platform called CredX. CredX is already on the AIU website. It contains many online courses for preparing teachers for teaching online effectively. In our country, we have online teaching but effective online teaching is something that our teachers are still to learn. Along with this, we decided to see how prepared our educational institutions are in terms of online education. That was the reason behind running the survey. The data that we have primarily from the duration of the first lockdown.

When it comes to infrastructure, in terms of devices, networks and bandwidths, more than half of the universities, both government and private are not equipped with smart classrooms, more than 50% of universities do not have projectors, and 65% of universities work with less than 1Gbps internet speeds. Admissions were automated for only 75 per cent of the universities in the country, and less than 25 per cent had automated exams. This shows how deficient we are when it comes to online teaching. When we asked universities about the major challenges they were facing while imparting online education, the two main concerns were the reduced attention span of students and the lack of value-added services such as internships.

There is a specific need for creating online content. This is one area where most of the faculty members surveyed said that they are not equipped to create online content. Fifty per cent of universities are using readymade online content available on different websites, while 22% of universities are still not using any online content. This is worrying and must be addressed.

When it comes to evaluation, a quarter of the universities saw the feasibility of continuous assessment throughout the year. The biggest problem for universities when the pandemic struck was how to evaluate and asses the progress of the students. It was neither possible to conduct exams online due to the digital divide nor could we conduct them physically.

When we compared the status of private vs. government institutions, we came to know that around 22% of government universities and 45% of private universities were fully equipped with classrooms. The private universities turned out to be better equipped than government ones when it comes to dealing with education in the pandemic era. We have to train our faculty for effective online teaching. More than 80% of the institutions wish that a central agency should be engaged for capacity building and training faculty for online education. There is a need to train our faculty not just for online teaching, but also for creating online content.

In summation, the universities surveyed prefer blended and hybrid models of education in view of the pandemic, there is a need for faculty to undergo training for teaching online as well as creating online content, there is a need to address the low internet bandwidth which is present in most of our institutes and a majority of the students need training to effectively learn from online education and universities need to ensure online assessment in all programmes, whether it is during the pandemic or post it. The report has a few recommendations for the government. The government should draw new flexible guidelines for the approval, affiliation and evaluation of online courses. If online courses are going to be the new normal, and it appears that they are, then the quality of those courses becomes very important. Based on the ground realities, new guidelines should be prepared. The Central Government should also ensure a steady flow of funds through budgetary provisions for the equitable spread of online education. Studies should be undertaken at the central level to evaluate new ways of assessment and examination. Teachers should be trained to continuously assess students. Digital and infrastructure support must be extended, especially in state universities and lifelong learning must be encouraged by apex bodies through online mode.

"The majority of students evinced a positive attitude towards online classes in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Online learning was found to be advantageous as it provided flexibility and convenience for the learners"

- Prof G. Thiruvasagam

Dr G. Thiruvasagam: Many countries have ordered the closure of all their educational institutions for the safety of their students. As a matter of fact, educational institutions have come to a functional standstill. The closure of educational institutions has left one in five students out of school worldwide. According to UNESCO, by the end of April 2020, 186 countries had implemented a nationwide closure, affecting about 73.8% of the total enrolled learners. Even though lockdowns and social distancing are the only ways to slow down the spread of Covid-19, the closure of educational institutions has affected a large number of students.

As schools and colleges are shut for an indefinite period, both educational institutions and students are experimenting with ways to complete their prescribed syllabus in the stipulated time in line with the academic calendar. These measures have caused a considerable degree of inconvenience, but they have also prompted new examples of educational innovation using digital interventions. Interestingly, Covid-19 has compelled educational institutions across the world to pursue creative approaches in a relatively short time. During this time, most of the universities have shifted to an online mode using digital platforms. Educational institutes in affected areas are seeking stop-gap solutions to continue teaching but it is important to know that the learning quality depends on the level of digital access and efficiency. The online learning environment varies profoundly from the traditional classroom situation when it comes to the learner’s motivation, satisfaction and interaction.

In the meantime, some of the students argue that there was no significant difference between online learning and face-to-face classrooms, with regards to their satisfaction and also, they supported the fact that online classes will be as effective as traditional classes, if they are designed effectively. These facts clearly prove that online learning is a perfect substitute for traditional classroom learning if courses are designed suitably. Educational institutions in India have also made a transition to the online teaching environment soon after the Union Government imposed a nationwide lockdown in March last year. The major concern is about the quality of learning, which is closely related to how well the content is designed and executed. The effectiveness of learning also depends on how the content is curated to the online environment and also in understanding and addressing the constraints faced by students.

I will talk about a case study, for example. I have made an attempt in my university involving 500 students. My university is the Academy of Maritime Education and Training, and it is privileged to have students from all across India. I had conducted a survey among them and the findings are very interesting. The inference I got is very useful-82% of respondents said that online classes have already started by the universities. When they were asked how to cope with the curriculum during the pandemic, a majority of the respondents, i.e. 67.1% indicated that online classes can be used as a substitute for classroom teaching to cover the syllabus, whereas, 29.9% of the students wanted the curriculum to be suspended and very few (92.93%) wanted teachers to provide only assignments and reading materials. The reasons behind the response of the students who were not in the favour of online classes (29.9%) can be traced to the inability to focus on the curriculum due to the fear of the pandemic or technological constraints which they faced while accessing online learning.

Various devices preferred by the respondents for attending online classes were smartphones (57.9%), laptops (35.83%), tablets (4.89%), and desktops (0.65%). This clearly suggests that if any organisation desires to create an application for online learning, it has to ensure that the platform is compatible with smartphones. Mobile data was the source of the internet for 82% of the respondents. The majority of the respondents (62%) said WhatsApp was the best way to communicate classroom updates. The lack of connectivity was ranked as the major bottleneck in the path of learning. The situation is even worse for those living in remote areas. The findings highlight that India’s digital divide and the lack of equity with respect to access to uninterrupted internet are proving to be a major hassle for most of the students.

I would like to place a few recommendations to address these challenges. The conduits of the educational system are changing with the move to online education. Online education has become the primary means of instruction. It may be too early to say how students and teachers will cope with online learning as they figure out the constraints, re-orient to address them, but the perception of the readiness of students and teachers is an important consideration. The majority of students evinced a positive attitude towards online classes in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Online learning was found to be advantageous as it provided flexibility and convenience for the learners. Students preferred well-structured content with recorded videos uploaded on the university websites. They also indicated the need for interactive sessions with teachers at the end of each class to optimise the learning experience. Online classes would be more challenging than traditional classrooms, because of technological constraints, delayed feedback, and the inability of the instructor to handle effectively, the information and communication technologies. Therefore, all these factors should be considered while developing online courses to make them more effective and productive for the learners. It is possible that once the pandemic settles down, we may see a continued increase in the educational system using online platforms for study aids in hybrid mode in combination with regular classes. I am confident these revelations will facilitate a reimagining and redesign of higher education in India.

"A sports teacher in a village is now teaching sports online. A drawing teacher in a small town is teaching drawing online. To take that into perspective, forget the students, even these teachers had never used a smartphone before this transition took place"

- Prof K K Aggarwal

Prof K K Aggarwal: Online education, really, has nothing to do with the Covid-19 pandemic. It is a coincidental turn of events that the push for online education came synchronous with the pandemic. One can say that the coronavirus has pushed us towards the transition to online education a little faster than the natural speed, therefore, all the concerns raised here are very valid because we have had to shift to online education almost overnight. Most of the universities in the country had no idea about online education at all. It is not only the universities but the entire educational system was caught off guard. We have 33 crore students whose future was at stake, right from the school to the university level. If our teachers would not have ventured into online education, these students would have lost one or even two years of their academic life. Therefore, despite all the shortcomings and inadequacies, as a senior academician, I would like to thank all the teachers of this country for making the move to online education.

A sports teacher in a village is now teaching sports online. A drawing teacher in a small town is teaching drawing online. To take that into perspective, forget the students, even these teachers had never used a smartphone before this transition took place. Studies tell us that in some small villages, students and teachers cannot even afford phones. The Panchayats of these villages have purchased 10-12 smartphones and given them to teachers and students on a rotational basis so that they can learn. That’s the scenario with which our education system has coped with.

I concede that the quality of education thus imparted may not have been to the optimum level but it was definitely at a reasonable level mandatory to save a year of the student’s academic life. Having said that, I find that there is confusion among people that online education and the Covid-19 pandemic are synonymous. That is a wrong assumption. Online education should ideally have started pre-Covid and should now continue post the pandemic. Now when the pandemic gets over, normal education will never be as ‘normal’ as it once was but it will also never be as abnormal as it is now. We will have to move to blended and hybrid education permanently.