PANAJI
Pinnacle, the initiative created by the Goa University students had their scheduled discussion recently on the topic “Uncertainties in education due to Covid-19”. The discussion started with moderator Arya Prabhudessai speaking about several discussions conducted by Pinnacle in the last 2 years.
“The current scenario of education is something that is not only affecting our state but also affecting the world today,” said Arya Prabudessai, highlighting major points of the education system during the pandemic, especially when it comes to online and offline mediums and the problems affecting teaching.
The first speaker Professor Nagendra Rao spoke of his experience of using online mediums to educate his students as compared to face-to-face teaching, creating problems for both the students and the teachers like the lack of interaction, the non-credibility of learning, and understanding what is being taught and mostly the lack of strong bandwidth with which these online classes need to be held. “The major problem I face as a teacher is how do I conduct the exams, as our technology is not as advanced yet.” stated Prof Nagendra Rao.
Noel Goes, the second speaker on the panel highlighted the uncertainty faced by students that will emerge after these online classes should they go on for years until their graduation. Not only in terms of marks but also considering other factors that teach a student to grow in society and their careers. Goes further stated, “When a question is asked to the student who says he/she knows the answer but the network fails, which results in the question not being answered and hence gets very monotonous from there.”
Shrinath Bhosale, being a software creator-focused more on the digital part of the education system giving an example of a video of his that went viral which was along the lines of “Should exams be cancelled?” Receiving many different comments, Shrinath speaks of his experience as the exam cancellation circular was issued and the responses of the students who were dancing when the news came but who were claiming only a few days earlier to be stressed and facing anxiety because of exams. “I feel they are not happy to save themselves from Covid but from actually being able to escape from studies.”
Darina Lobo, the first student on the panel to start the discussion from a student’s perspective stated “I’m a little disappointed with exams being postponed or cancelled because I study to learn, my career is going to be in the field of teaching. As a teacher, I don’t know what kind of teaching I will impart to my students and that is my biggest uncertainty.”
The other student, Sasha Baretto speaking on the reach of online classes to students of urban and rural areas, stated “I think This is a very ideologic notion that online education is accessible to even a person sitting in the most remote of places but a major problem is the digital divide that has surfaced is that we are shifting to fibre optics servers in urban areas but people in villages don't have access to even a 2G or a 3G spectrum to be even able to hear an audio lecture.”
Emannuel De Noronha, last student on the panel, focused on topics of the pros and cons of offline and online studies and made a very important point about the mental health in this generation of students where the stress and anxiety pile up from education. “Not everybody ends up having the same understanding or feel of a subject or a topic. In my case, I’m a Mass Com student and we have a lot of practical subjects like photography, video editing and so on, so in such cases, the understanding is limited theoretically but that practical learning is very much needed for subjects like these.”
Among the discussion, questions, and a lot of knowledgeable and rewarding answers, based on a few topics the panel put up polls for the public to decide and vote based on their opinions. Some of the few were the ones based on questions like resources provided by the government in terms of education since the beginning of the pandemic, to which more than half of the public voted for a 'No'-- that the government has not provided while the rest remained undecided.
Another question asked was the experience of online classes by either a teacher, student, or even a parent or guardian; to which half of them responded with online classes needing improvement while the rest were on either side of online classes being good enough or horrible.
