AHMEDABAD, OCT 8
Poor Internet connectivity is the most difficult thing for online education, believes 56% of teachers whereas 44% believe that it is a lack of students’ attention which bothers them the most. 20% of teachers find it difficult to explain to the students. The fear of getting infected with coronavirus is the reason 45% of the teachers not preferring to resume the school duties until there is no access to the vaccine for the deadly virus, says a survey by Extramarks Education, an online education technology company.
Education system needs drastic changes
Commenting on the survey results, Shaishav Kayastha, General Manager – West India, Extramarks Education said, “The COVID-19 has drastically changed the lives around us and the education sector has affected the most from it. To gauge the interest and challenges while teaching the students online, we had conducted a survey amongst the 2,200 teachers of Gujarat. The results of the survey were surprising and it demands drastic changes in our present education system.”
Discipline gets a nosedive
Around 2,500 teachers were invited to participate in the survey, out of which 2200 had responded to this exercise. As the ‘Work From Home’ has become a new norm and children have adjusted themselves to online education, poor internet connectivity is creating a big hurdle to engage the student-teacher communities believed 56% of teachers surveyed. Many times the teachers had to cancel the classes due to technical issues. Students also had to miss the class or find it hard to connect to the internet for the study. On the other side, many teachers are not happy on the discipline front. 44% of the teachers opined that students are not paying attention during the online class. Sleeping, going to washrooms frequently, eating, or drinking during the online class are a few common behaviors that distract the students from the study, the survey reveals.
Teachers turn adversities into opportunities, become tech-savvy
57% of teachers believe that online teaching is a challenging task whereas 35% of respondents are comfortable with traditional as well as online ways of teaching. However, for the teachers who fall into the 45+ age group, it was almost a nightmare to learn the necessary computer skills. 77% of teachers with the age of 45 or more responded that they were not very much familiar with computers/laptops. However, 75% of teachers confessed that their teaching techniques changed a lot due to adopting digital platforms. Learning from educational videos on Youtube, speaking confidently in front of a camera, converting a document to an image, or download just an audio file from a video were mammoth tasks for them earlier.
Work From Home take a toll on female teachers
The teachers, especially the females, are battling on the personal front too during the Covid-19 pandemic. Multi-tasking and Work From the Home need for an hour and maintaining a work-life balance is testing the teachers’ patience. 75% of teachers believed that their daily schedule has been affected due to online education. There is no clarity on when the schools will open normally and how the classes will be taken. 45% of teachers not willing to go to school until the vaccine for COVID-19 is not available as they have concerns for their own safety. However, 22% of teachers are preferring to teach the students online even after the schools open regularly whereas 72% of teachers emphasized both the methods of teaching i.e., traditional as well as online.
Digital teaching here to stay
“The schools have been shut since the first lockdown in late March-2020 but kudos to our teachers who took up the challenge to teach the students and switched to online platforms. This created a new opportunity for teachers where they could upgrade themselves within no time and created a winning situation at a very low-cost of internet, they could expertise into Digital Teaching where they were even scared of switching ON an IT Device”, added Kayastha.
