Article by – Shishir Tripathi

Intern at Hariyali Foundation
In collaboration with
Educational News

After the arrival of Corona Virus into the country after the months of February and March, educational institutions including schools and colleges were shut down and the normal teaching learning process was hampered. After, a certain time, the Teaching process again started through online mode and till now the same process is being followed.

Now, the question arises that the available mode of teaching is accessible to all the students across India or there are other students left who still are not connected with their respective educational institutions through the new mode of learning?

The normal classroom learning is not possible at present because of transmission of virus amongst the students and that will make the situation even worse than before. Therefore, lectures and notes to the students are given via the online mode with help of apps like Zoom, Google meet, Jio meet, Google Classroom and many more. These apps can only be accessed with the help of a Smartphone. Now, being a developing country, unequal distribution of wealth and resources is genuine in a country like India.

According to a survey by Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), at least 27% students do not have access to Smart phones, tablets or laptops for online classes. Such college and school students are facing a lot of problems in their studies

According to a real time progress tracker, 83% of households in India had electricity connection till 2018, and after some tome Modi government claimed that they have electrified India to 100% but everyone knows that laying wire lines, and transformers doesn’t mean that electricity reaches to the place.

Though the data is unavailable, there are villages still left waiting for electricity and hence in such remote areas it is so difficult for a student having a phone or any other electronic device and charging it properly for uninterrupted attendance in the online classes.

Now, there are sudden prolonged power cuts too which occur and can obstruct the power supply to electronic devices which can hamper the delivery of education through online mode from teachers and professors to the students and scholars. The all India average duration of power cuts was 5 hours and 28 minutes on May 2, 2019. And also, in villages sometimes the reason is all unknown to the people behind the sudden power cuts.

There is also a problem of slow speed in congested localities, small towns, villages and remote areas of the country. According to the Akamai Q1 2017 State of the Internet Report, the average internet connection speed in India is 6.5 Mbit/s and the average peak connection speed is 41.4 Mbit/s. Globally, India was ranked 89th out of 149 countries/regions by average internet connection speed and 97th by average peak connection speed. According to telecom industry experts, the slow bandwidth speed in India is due to the high cost of spectrum leading to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) not investing much into the spectrum. The growing number of telecom users and Smartphone users are also cited as one of the reasons for slow speed in the country.

Therefore, taking into consideration the present situation, the online mode of education is the best way possible to deliver knowledge to the students in these tough times of Corona. Also, the problems of unavailability of electronic devices and slow internet speed and proper supply of electricity to each and every household must be ensured so that the youth which is the future of the nation gets uninterrupted education and training through online mode.