India’s Readiness for Online Education

In the midst of the worldwide lockdown, there is an emphasis on online classes and studies in all countries. India is no exception to this where issues like digital literacy and digital divide between the need for online education and its business are emerging.

In India, all educational institutions including schools and colleges could complete their academic sessions, before they were closed from March 24 2020 due to the COVID-19 crisis. During this period of lockdown, an attempt was made to complete the session through online teaching. Classes were going on in many educational institutions and exams were pending. Controversial web platforms like Zoom were used to make classes online. Somewhere classes were held through Google Classrooms, Google Meet and somewhere through Skype. Somewhere online material was created on YouTube, sometimes videos of lectures and classes were prepared and put online and sent to groups of students through WhatsApp or emails. But most of the institutes were not ready for the online exam. Experts advised that institutes like IITs can conduct examinations of final year students online.

During the lockdown, rescue and mismanagement of COVID in the real world, there was a silent fuss in the virtual world. Homes were converted into the quarantine centers and the places of online work and online studies. This cycle was going on vigorously for about one and a half months. Here summer holidays have been declared in many educational institutions and in many institutions it is expected in a few days, so now the pace of this series has stopped. But this whole experience has not only indicated a change in the modalities of future education but has also paved the way.

Competition to Build Virtual Coaching Center

Due to the desertification of coaching, parallel virtual coaching centers have come into existence. Experts who once taught in closed rooms are now teaching while looking at screens. There is a massive race to register for online coaching institutes, digital classrooms and online courses. A new e-market has opened for the production and consumption of educational materials. Many online learning platforms and tutorials like Coursera, Byjus, Vedantu and Mindspark have been witnessing a demand for the past few years. The result of this popularity is that Baiju Ravindran, the founder of online classes platform Byju’s, has been described as India’s youngest billionaire. The total value of his wealth in the list of Forbes has been estimated at about two billion dollars.

The apex audit and marketing agency KPMG and Google have released a report titled ‘Online Education in India: 2021’, which has estimated an unprecedented eight-fold growth in the online education business in India during the period 2016 to 2021. In 2016, this business was about $ 250 million and in 2021 its value will increase to about two billion dollars. The number of paid users of education was said to be about 16 lakh in 2016, which is likely to be around one crore in 2021. According to government data, there are 993 universities, about forty thousand colleges and 385 private universities in the country. There are about 40 million students in higher education and the enrollment rate of students, ie the gross enrollment ratio, has increased to 26.3 percent. In view of these figures, the agencies related to online education are drenched in the hopes of profit. Virtual classes and video-audio materials, presentations, courses and tutorials are also being conducted under online learning, methods of webinars, mock tests, videos and counseling etc. are also being conducted online.

Internet Availability

According to KPMG, Internet penetration in India is 31 percent, which means that a little over 400 million people use the Internet in the country. By end of 2021, this number will exceed 73 crores. Similarly, there are 29 crore smartphone users in the country at present and by end of 2021, 180 million new users will be added. Online medium is also considered to be the most effective for distance education. Meanwhile, the government has started campaigns like Swayam, e-Basta and Digital India. Looking at this spirited picture, it can be seen that education in India will move from offline to online mode in a blink of an eye. But the more fascinating the figures, the more complex the reality. Because right now the whole process is scattered, there is no coordination or planning in it. It is difficult to say how prepared the school and university administrations were to run online classes boasting of being smart classrooms and digital, but the practical difficulties associated with it soon became visible. Somewhere there is a problem of internet connection, somewhere speed, somewhere electricity and some other technical and domestic hassles. There is a debate in the education world whether the online trend will give the possibility of providing quality education to more and more children in the future. Because it is not just about the Internet and learning, it is also about the huge digital divide that is visible in this country between the rich and the poor. If you look back on the above figures of KPMG, then this aspect also becomes clear. Apart from the technical requirements and scheduling of online classes, there is also a question of mutual cohesion and social engagement between teacher and students and classmates. Teachers can also use other human and physical tools of communication and communication in the classroom, but it is not possible to do this online. The biggest drawback of virtual classrooms is the inability to keep all the lines together. Here, apart from technical problems, issues like threats to privacy and decency have also arisen during classes conducted through an app called Zoom in cities. Many more inconveniences have also been seen, social media networking may remain unknown but online studies also require authentic presence, patience and discipline. Obviously this new experience demands specialized training.

Need to Create the Right Environment

In between the compulsion and attraction of online studies, it is also important to know whether the country is really ready for it on the basis of numbers. According to a study, only 12.5% of the families with students studying in the university have internet access in their homes. Mr. Abhirup Mukhopadhyay, Professor of Economics at the Indian Statistical Commission, in an article based on data from the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO), has said that 85 percent of urban students studying in universities have internet access, but only 41 percent of them have a home. On the other hand, out of 55 percent of higher education rural students, only 28 percent have access to the Internet in their homes. State-wise differences have also been seen. In Kerala, 51 percent of rural households have internet access but only 23 percent have them in their homes. In states like West Bengal and Bihar, internet is available in only seven to eight percent of rural households. This is need of an hour to ensure internet availability in each and every corner of the country to make online education successful.