Aakash Bhatnagar
The sudden shutdown has affected the country in every possible way. One of the sectors that has been affected adversely, is education sector. This sector has been reeling in absence of one uniform policy across the country. It has also exposed the varied systems prevalent across the country.
At this juncture of lock-down, a lot of talk has been talked about the medical facilities, spread and placement of human resources across the country. Also, the Prime Minister of India has urged India to be ‘Atamnirbhar’ to face this moment of crisis. But the question arises HOW?
With future of Lakhs of student hanging in vacumm with no solid guideline from ministry of HRD regarding implementation of exams, trainings or imparting degree, the decision is left on the whims of boards and universities.
The students whose semesters were getting completed in Engineering and Management schools were left roaming helplessly for training. Sufficient helping hand help was not extended from educational institutions.
We hear that different states and universities are implementing their ideas locally or a rumour is spread regarding examination dates and at the same time cancellation of exams. We hear that the IIT’s are promoting their students on basis of internal examinations. Surprisingly enough that the Delhi University is organizing online exams with open books. On the other hand the Telegana and the Maharashtra Governments are not only cancelling the exams but also allotting degree to students of final year without exams. The government of Rajasthan is also promoting students first year and second year but with a condition that their examination can be taken anywhere even in middle of the coming session. The universities are daring to conduct examination of final year students among increasing number of Corona virus cases. It is indeed an indication of how poorly our education system is being managed and how much discreetness is present there in our educational system across the country!
It’s high time to understand that in a country where we talk a loud about the uniform law across the country, we should know about the necessity of a uniform education system.
What does it reflect?
We boast about India’s Information Technology professionals across the world who are helping businesses by implementing the ideas in form of software solutions to their problems but on the contrary our own system is marred by a poorly implemented IT infrastructure in universities, colleges and schools of the country. We need to address this problem first.
Unfortunately there is no Risk Management planning in Universities and Education boards for calamity and extraordinary times like this.
Lack of proactiveness on part of educationists everyone is waiting for others to respond. The period of lockdown should have been used to assess and counter the challenges ahead.
Lack of properly trained staff and faculty members to deal with such situations. There is no regular internal system of evaluation in college and university courses except for few. The professional bodies also have not shown much interest in addressing risk management with Universities and other educational bodies across the countries. During this period of lock-down the policies for risk management need to be made and implemented that has not been done. This period has been treated as a holiday.
What can be done?
First of all dates for examinations be set so that the students must have ample time to face the exams. An option should also be given to them to take exam within a period of one year as per their convenience on specific centres.
A change is to be made in pattern of examination. It should be online examination so that students staying in remote areas and fearing to go out can be benefitted. In the new session regular internal examination must be conducted in colleges for evaluation and assessment. Schools and Colleges should upgrade their libraries to online gradually. The faculties should think about innovative ways to teach and interact with students using IT. Infrastructure upgrade and training for online classes should be provided to faculties so that they can give in their best.
To be ‘Atamnirbhar’ we need to make our education system foolproof which can consistently provide well read and well trained man power for development of country. The time has come where we should understand and consider education sector as a backbone for all other sectors and give a serious thought on this. We should employ new methods and technologies to make it better.
We can take cue from MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) and use the methodologies in our regular degrees and make it more easily accessible and keep its reach widespread.
The expectation of youths in terms of education policy can be summed up with quote of Lord Macaulay – Our principle is simply to ensure uniformity where you can have it, diversity where you must have it, but in all cases certainty.”
0
0
