With 200 Million Kids Out of School, Coronavirus is Putting Online Learning to Test
Several technical reasons are obstructing the way for a proper online educational system, as we are nearly not as prepared for what has come our way. The global educational crisis is nothing new to us, according to many international studies and a report published by the world bank, the percentage of the children who could not read and understand is sitting at 55% - these numbers are before the incumbent times, the times in which the talks of the COVID-19 at dinner in many households has become the conventional norm. This pandemic has the potential to deteriorate these substandard numbers even further. If our educational systems do not improvise and adapt to the current situation then one can expect economies to crumble.
The challenges that the world will face and should not be fretted about as they are not alien to us. These are the complications that were faced before the global outbreak but on a much smaller level. The challenges are the following:
- Educational learning losses
- Increased rate of dropouts
- Increased dissonance in terms of uniformity of education
The communities that will bear the burn of the pandemic are the poor communities, and the lower classes living in the third world countries whose only opportunity to get out of their misery is proper education. If they are deprived of it, terrorism will aggravate living standards, socio-economic imbalance in the rich and poor will increase, and most importantly there will be an unprecedented percentage of the populace living below the poverty levels.
The Learning Curve
The biggest positive impact that COVID-19 has brought to the educational system is that many students who start the year late – because of domestic and financial problems, can now easily facilitate their learning curve rather than disrupting their personal and professional lives. Online education has paved the way towards solving this problem.
On the contrary, in a synoptic view, online education has brought with it many challenges that are faced by both the students from posh families and the ones from poor backgrounds. These challenges involve students from poor backgrounds being deprived of education due to a lack of sources to access any online educational content and to opt for online education. Many children even lack the necessities required to study, for instance – a desk, books and Wi-Fi.
Fortunately, many rich countries have contributed to mitigating the sheer disproportion in the educational system for the poor and rich students. These countries are looking outside the box by not only contributing and enhancing their online educational system - but also creating new sources of education that can be acquired by any student to curb the ever-rising disproportion in the uniformity of education for different classes of societies. These strategies include providing students from less affluent backgrounds with basic necessities such as books that they could self-study from during the period of quarantines. They can use other resources such as educational videos, tutorials that are easily accessible on a smartphone.
TV and Radios are some of the most important tools that can be used as relevant sources for educational purposes. In modern times, every family, be it rich or poor – possess a TV. Besides that, they can also access radio which can be used to transmit educational content to the deprived classes of societies.
Staying Engaged
Dropout rates are on an incremental toll, this is because of the sheer disengagement between the kids and the educational world. Since students need an incentive and a motive to learn - this can be acquired through facilitating proper engagement between teachers and students. Maintaining a healthy communication channel with academicians and especially the young ones – is of utmost importance. One of the biggest factors the students are deprived of currently is the fundamental skills needed to function in the corporate world, and this cannot be acquired by any online educational platform, but only with experience.
5 Most Common Challenges Faced by Students in eLearning
1. Adaptability Struggle
A swift change from a traditional classroom to a virtual environment of a classroom can be drastic for most students. Improvising and adapting to the virtual educational decorum is a herculean task, as it requires you to change everything you may have learned so far about a traditional classroom. This adaption for students can take a long time.
2. Technical Issues
Many students around the world do not possess or have any access to a high-speed internet connection that most of the online courses require, and thus they fail to join online classrooms which often results in loss of education. This is one of the several problems faced by students acquiring online education. Moreover, many students from underprivileged backgrounds don’t even have computers to attain any video sources of learning materials. The sole solution to these dire issues faced by students regularly is to procure a source that every student possesses or can possess, one of these sources is a smartphone, and almost every student in today's world possess a smartphone or something even cheaper.
3. Computer Literacy
The argument contradicting this problem is that the students are tech-savvy. Synoptically saying, many students from third world countries and poor backgrounds don’t have adequate computer literacy to properly use them. In addition to this, most of the students lack the basic rudimentary skills to even operate Microsoft Word and PowerPoint-like tools that are essential in online learning. This problem leads to severe consequences, and students become ashamed and many do not even try to enrol their selves in the online courses.
4. Time Management
Time management is one of those tasks that most students fail to comply with. During the time of quarantine, every student is in their homes laying on the couch watching Netflix and skipping online classes. Teachers must work as an incentive to make them take part in the classes. Teachers can give them strict deadlines for assignments and a warning that students could fail the semester if the assignments are not submitted on time. This can make the students quit being lazy, and manage their time efficiently. However, some students can find a reliable essay writing service and pay for getting custom-written assignments.
5. Self-Motivation
Self-motivation is required in almost every task. However, many students, learning on online platforms, lack self-motivation. This lack of motivation could lead to sheer procrastination, not attending online classes, and falling behind your classmates on your coursework. Many learners even assemble the idea of giving up because of lack of motivation. Students need to follow their heart and find their purpose in order to attain good grades. Any negativity in their mood can drag them down and not let them shine. Only a rigid positive attitude towards study can make them overcome and surpass the challenges that are faced by them on online learning.
With this pandemic, e-learning involves both ease and hurdles. We hope the administrators soon find a way to cater to the needs of the underprivileged students for successful online learning.
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