Are digital education programs in India accessible for persons with disabilities? How do students with disabilities access online classes? Is there currently any guideline or policy of the government which educational institutes need to follow? New Delhi, February 5, 2022: As per Census data of 2011 there are a total of 2.68 crore persons with disabilities who call India their[Read More…]
Some time ago, I met the daughter of a friend who has by now finished 2 years of college life without setting foot in the college campus. All this time the classes have been held online and just as she was looking forward to getting ready for offline college and making some friends, Omicron surfaced and things were back to[Read More…]
“To know that we know what we know, and to know that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge” (Nicolaus Copernicus). Socratic knowledge in its true essence is neither any teaching in the conventional sense of world nor about filling the empty minds of largely passive students with facts and figures acquired through mugging[Read More…]
Written by B.Sivaraman & Kumudini Pati Online classes have become the main mode of learning for millions of school students across India due to the Covid-19 pandemic, with its repeated lockdowns and social distancing measures. The shift however is proving to be extremely painful for families in small towns and rural areas for many reasons, especially high costs of purchasing[Read More…]
It seems appropriate that the 2020-2021 school year in Portland, Oregon, began amid toxic smoke from the catastrophic wildfires that blanketed many parts of the state for almost two weeks. The night before the first day of school, the smoke alarm in my bedroom went off. Looking back, I see it as a clarion call, a shrieking, beeping warning of all the[Read More…]
Health is a precious asset. The World Health Organization identifies health as a state of total physical, mental, and social well-being, rather than simply the absence of disease. It also claims that there can be no true physical health without mental health. A person with good mental health is aware of their abilities, can cope with life’s normal stresses, can[Read More…]
Written by Dr. Sudhamshi Beeram, Dr. Arathi P Rao and Prof. K Rajasekharan Nayar The disruption caused by COVID-19 pandemic has been drastic and perhaps one of the most dramatic transitions witnessed in the education sector. The massive and unexpected closures have forced educational institutions to seek quick fixes in different digital learning platforms (Jandrić, 2020). More than a semester[Read More…]
The coronavirus student, a species brought forth in the world of education by a pandemic that has killed over 400,000 people in the United States and 100,000 in the United Kingdom, is a troubled creature. When universities and schools across the globe were given varying and often contradictory messages on the safety of continuing in class teaching and participation, the[Read More…]
Co-Written by Dr. Arathi P Rao, Dr. Sudhamshi Beeram, Dr. Parul Malik and Dr. Urvashi Priyadarshini The fight against the threats of COVID -19 pandemic has profoundly impacted almost all sectors of mankind. The field of education is a deeply affected strata, with closures of educational institutions and emergency distance-learning plans turning the teachers’ routines and student interactions totally upside down.[Read More…]
“Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” – Charles Dederich The above quote, used to describe a child’s first day at school, has been prolifically used in the past to impress upon its reader, the value attached to the act of ‘going to school’. It is associated with a certain sentiment, rooted in substantial individual experiences[Read More…]
by Chandreyee Goswami & Dhriti Sonowal As students of social sciences, we often harbour a sense of enlightenment in knowing that the subject matter we engage with has been historically instituted to identify the varieties of social realities that individuals might find them in. The legacy of social sciences has been its deep inspection and understanding of the social world which[Read More…]
The online teaching due to the lockdown is a new experience for many students in the country. It has gone through many glitches due to lack of facilities, lack of expertise among teachers, and lack of exposure to the new medium devoid of collegiality, lack of interpersonal exchanges that people are used to in class room teaching. This has resulted[Read More…]
The global Covid-19 pandemic has caused an unprecedented change in all walks of life. It has clutched different sectors and overthrown people around the world to a new social and economic crisis. Education is one of them, due to the pandemic around 1.52 billion students stranded at home and over 60.2 million teachers remain out of schools (UN Secretary-General, 2020,[Read More…]
I completed my primary education from a school that no more exists: Heroes Memorial Inter College. Situated in the capital of India’s most populous state, it was made in the memory of heroes and whoever fits in your definition of one. With about the strength of 400 students—that started to leave the school at a surprisingly exponential rate—the man who[Read More…]
It was only a matter of time that the fire started by Covid-19 would consume all traditional aspects of higher education teaching-learning and reach the doorstep of faculty training forcing it to don the e-avatar. On 1st July 2020 UGC issued directions to all the Human Resource Development Centres (HRDCs) – the institutions responsible for professional development of higher education[Read More…]
It has been few weeks now that we have been watching the University Grants commision (UGC) and the Students’ differences unfold over the question of conducting examination in times of the Pandemic. The Supreme Court too has been invoked to adjudicate the matter at the earliest. By all possibilities, even thinking of an exam, be it online or offline mode[Read More…]
In this time of the COVID pandemic, it is often heard that Coronavirus doesn`t differentiate between rich and poor. Though the virus infects both rich and poor equally, the steps to control it, the reaction of the state, consequences of lockdown — all these don`t paint a picture of equality in a most unequal society. In a country like India,[Read More…]
“Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition”, said Jacques Barzun. Rightly, did he point this out that ‘teaching’ is no more respected as a profession neither ‘teachers’ are accorded their due share of acknowledgement for the work that they do. This is not to say that teaching has always been a respectful[Read More…]
We live in a time where various technologies are advancing at an exponential rate. This accelerated progress is influencing all aspects of our lives, and inevitably, has a profound impact on the job market. Surveys conducted among employers show that, although knowledge is important, a greater emphasis is being put on skills – specifically “soft” skills, more than ever before.[Read More…]
I have been attending online classes for three months but the experience continues to be the same – surreal and absurd. In these times, when the world is going through a crisis of great magnitude and death could be right there knocking on the door, what most school students do or rather, what they have to do is to open[Read More…]
Delhi University seems to have been changing its stance every day in the High Court as petitions challenging the Online Open Book Exams are being heard. Meanwhile, even University Grants Commission revised its guidelines, taking a complete U-turn, recommending universities to conduct exams. Alongside the Covid-panic, confusion and paranoia have become constants in the lives of students. The ongoing petitions[Read More…]
After the announcement of strict lockdown by PM Modi from 24th March 2020, Public Universities, Colleges, and Schools had been completely closed down and supposed to follow the guidelines and advisory issued by Central governments that led to the suspension of classroom teaching in India. Meanwhile, universities and colleges teachers have got instructions from concerned authorities to take online[Read More…]
Well, in education, peace is a state where teacher, teaching, taught, structure and infrastructure becomes one. The ultimate goal of teaching is to promote learning that is why education means enabling the mind to find out the ultimate truth, which emancipates us from the bondage of dust and which gives us wealth not of things but of inner light,[Read More…]
The COVID-19 pandemic has severely affected the functioning of colleges and schools all over the world since March. However, these educational institutions are expected to be re-opened after August 2020. But these campuses are needed to take measures to prevent students getting affected by the pandemic. Several countries have successfully combated the challenges brought by the pandemic. Taiwan is one[Read More…]
With the outbreak of COVID-19, educational institutions had to change their mode of teaching. Though virtual teaching is not something new, but doing it on a daily basis has made it a new normal. Educational institutions started an online mode of teaching to recommence the studies. Now when teachers and students get ready in the morning, it is to gear[Read More…]
The first case of Covid- 19 was reported in India on 30th January 2020. On 24th March 2020 Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared nationwide lockdown as a measure to contain the spread of the novel corona virus. It had a wide reaching impact on the educational system of the country as all the schools and educational institutions were shut down[Read More…]
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Nelson Mandela. Derived from a Latin word “ Educatum” it means the act of teaching or training. The training to nourish the good qualities in human beings and to bring out the best in every individual. Education seeks to develop the innate capacities of man.[Read More…]
Co-Written by Abass Rather & Aqib Yousuf Government’s announcement to switch over from physical class room to virtual class room during the Covid 19 Pandemic lockdown period seems to be a digital revolutionary step. It seems that govt is in no mood of compromise on the issue of education. Students should not suffer due to the outbreak of covid 19[Read More…]
It is circa 2020 and we are in the middle of a declared pandemic and a nation-wide lockdown. In the current extraordinary circumstances, university students have been simply asked to concentrate on their studies, and now, be ready to appear for open book examinations in several leading universities. Of course, it is presumed that the poorest of the poor students[Read More…]
The coronavirus pandemic is seen as a ‘useful crisis’ in which to transform the economy. Yet the university system has not received any such ‘stimulus’ of fresh ways of thinking about education. While exams do play a role, they are being fetishized as the return of ‘normalcy’ even as many students have been left to themselves in the face of[Read More…]
India has started Lockdown 4.0 with dismal numbers. We are already over 1 lakh cases, and as much as NITI Aayog would predict otherwise, the slump in cases is yet to come. A large part of the country’s 1.3 billion population has been at home since over 50 days now; I say a large part because it excludes the homeless[Read More…]
The unprecedented situation that the global community faces in the wake of Corona induced pandemic and the fear, panic, isolation and uncertainty that it has brought with it, has left many wondering about the future of the world in general and their lives in particular. We, and I am sure I can say this for almost the entire world population,[Read More…]
The Corona virus outbreak has presented unprecedented challenges to different areas of public life, especially the education system. Due to the pervasiveness of a novel virus, the closure of educational institutions and rebooting of learning, educational institutions are accompanied by frantic efforts to accomplish the syllabi in some or the other way. In this desperate situation, online education has been[Read More…]
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Our beloved K.P.Sasi is no more. Filmmaker, cartoonist, writer, mentor, friend and above all tireless activist championing the cause of every underdog, Sasi breathed his last, mid-afternoon this Christmas day – after battling a medical condition for months. I remember the last time I met him, almost exactly a month before he passed away, at the ayurvedic healing center in[Read More…]
