Covid-19 lockdown will encourage us to re-engineer our education system, says expert

Coronavirus has brought economies across the globe to shut due to nation-wide lockdowns. This has also impacted the education sector adversely as the offline or physical classes have come to a stop. In middle of all of this, some universities and institutes are trying to make use of technology and provide online classes to ensure there is no academic loss for students. One such institute is India Today Media Institute - ITMI. Apart from just delivering online lectures, they have taken many more initiatives to keep students abreast with latest technologies.

Here is the edited excerpt of the conversation:

Q: How has today’s scenario of lockdown and global pandemic impacted your education system?

A: The Covid-19 pandemic has affected our educational system badly due to the total closures of schools, universities and colleges. Educational processes are completely disturbed and sudden closure has forced us to rethink our traditional ongoing educational process. The traditional form of classroom-based teaching-learning process is not possible in the current situation. In today's scenario, the online process may be encouraged but again the challenge is having access and availability of devices to utilise various resources.  

Q: What are some of the interesting initiatives your institute has taken to make it easy for your students and also contribute to eradication of this pandemic?

A: We, as an educational institution, initiated the following steps to make our students engaged and motivated:

• Online classes through different online Apps.
• Regular interaction with the students by the Course In-charges
• Guest speakers to discuss the current pandemic and its impact. It helps our students to be clear and more organised and prepared to face future challenges
• Interaction with the various Industry professionals to understand the future trends of the organisations due to COVID-19.  
• Working on various audio-visual projects with the help of different online applications and also learning team management without face to face interactions.

Q: How is the institute planning to conduct exams, evaluate and declare result online?

A: We are working on the necessary changes in our examination system and evaluation methods. Looking at the pandemic our examinations and result declarations methods will be shifted to online. 

Q: How are students responding to new initiatives?

A: Initially, students were confused about their remaining courses and the future before the initiatives were taken by the ITMI. After implementing various initiatives, students are feeling positive and motivated and are actively taking part in online sessions and other activities.  

Q: What impact will it have on students’ interpersonal, team management skills?

A: Through various exercises, we found that students are more methodical and planned for every activity. In group projects, they conduct the regular meetings through online apps and prepare draft plan first, after that everyone work according to discussed plan and come up with more professional output. 

Q: What are the best practices that the college is adopting to ensure seamless online learning?

A: Virtual classrooms are trending now. Almost all the institutes and universities have adopted this concept but there are certain other practices that we are taking care off in order to ensure seamless online learning. This includes:

• Online discussion-based learning.
• Sharing lecture plan and topic well in advance to make sure two-way communication during the online class.
• Providing online resources and study materials to our students for better learning and understanding
• Focus on more audio-visual and online research-based projects for application-based learning.

Q: How will today’s situation revolutionize online learning in India and abroad?

A: Today's scenario will definitely revolutionise online learning in India and abroad. It will encourage us to re-engineer our education system and development of a seamless knowledge management system for our educational institutions.