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Pramod K. Nayar, teaches at the University of Hyderabad observes, The repute of degree and institutions are not lost because of a shift in the mode of learning-teaching mode, they are lost because of poor teaching, irrespective of the mode employed.
Neeta Dhuri, a teacher for hearing impaired students, takes an online speech therapy session of parents and students during the COVID-19 lockdown in Mumbai.
Photo: PTI
For over a year, the battle for effective pedagogies online has raged, and opinion remains, as expected, divided on multiple aspects, from syllabus to assessment and the exacerbated digital inequality. Worries over the collapse of the traditional classroom, the absence of classroom debates, the watered-down syllabi and mass copying have been expressed across the world by educators, administrators and students.
A year before the pandemic forced education into online modes, Forbes carried a report on studies that showed the value of online education and degrees was in fact increasing among American consumers. This may not be a spectacular exemplar for the Global South, but it definitely maps a trend in parts of the world. The option of greater flexibility (for students) of courses in online education are seen by many universities as a great step forward, said another report in Time. India, despite the digital divide, transitioned well to the online mode, said an Oxford University Press study, but it also found that ‘a large majority of students have been impacted due to a lack of devices or connectivity at home’...
We could perhaps ask how, when for many of the (privileged) everyday life itself has been mediated, in most of its experiences, through digital technology, is the online mode a distancing medium?
Source: The Wire
