Students, hardly coping online learning in lockdown

Omi Gurung ►

The long lockdown for the COVID-19 pandemic has closed schools, colleges and the other educational institutions. More than 30 thousands students are locked inside the house. Some of the schools has not conducted their final exams too. SEE exams also postponed, not sure when the exam will be start. Teachers and students enter a new world of virtual lectural and online classes as the lockdown brought about by the coronavirus shuts down schools and colleges.

In the context of Nepal, all institutions, and people, do not have access to internet technology, this time can be the first step to enter the digital learning world. All universities, colleges, and even schools should rightly launch the online learning system, which really makes the educational practices convenient opening the way to a new epoch. Online classes are new to the schools and all the teachers are not the expert, they are not familiar with the online classes. Remote area students do not have access of internet service and cannot afford for it also. They may not ready for the online classes.

Some departments of Tribhuvan University and Kathmandu University have also announced they are conducting online classes, during this period. Tribhuwan University addresses that during the online classes students must should wear schools uniform and daily attendance will be done by teachers. Cratering attendance in some districts contrasts with reports from several selective or comfortable schools where close to 100 percent of students are participating in online learning. The dramatic split promises to further deepen the typical academic achievement gaps between poor, middle-class and wealthy students. More than 30 thousands of students in cities and towns are joined to computers and smartphones screens as teachers take to online apps for lectures, tutorials and assessments. With the extension now, various private educational institutions are coming up with an alternative solution to conduct their classes online. Some institutions are uploading lectures to Youtube.

For addressing the SEE students, daily online live classes are broadcasting in NTV plus Nepali channel. Some institutions have adopted the Zoom app, other google classroom. Yet the instructors are unable to say how effective they are, and not every student is tunning in. Here is how the system has rolled out. Parents in Nepal are relieved that children are academically engaged online, as my daughter Nandini is in 10^th class, at Global Public School, Pepsicola, Kathmandu. It is important and helpful that online classes are started. Due to the technical problem in internet service she cannot join the online classes since from 4 days. So, how it is possible to all students. For some parents finds it difficult to adjust online system of the children. It is Due to the lockdown period, domestic help is not available adding to household work. Some parents say schools are going online only to justify charging the fees in Baisakh 2077. Without textbook for the new session, schools are sending study materials by online.

We are going through global crisis and education can definitely wait for few months. Most teachers find it difficult to cope with teaching. Lack of familiarity with technology forces them to seek help from their children to set up apps and deals with technical glitches. The absence rate appears particularly high in schools with many low-income students, whose access to home computers and internet connections can be spotty. Some teachers report that fewer than half of their students are regularly participating.

“A lot of students have siblings they have to take care of, and their parents are still going out and working,” Ms. Sharadha Sapkota, Student of Nepal Commerce Campus Minbhawan, Kathmnadu, caretaker mate at others house said. “It makes it very difficult to log on at the same time as feeding breakfast to their siblings or helping with chores.” She has difficult to recharge in mobile, how could she afford for the online classes.

Achham, Nepal, Mr Alok Khadka, Grade 9, Shree Adarsha Higher School Kausaltar, Bhaktapur, is one of the students trying hard to keep up with his classes who has been dissatisfied by his lack of access to technology. He has passed the Grade 8 and staying at his hometown Achham, as his school starts the online classes and he has to join. He has a laptop of his father, but no Wi-Fi network in his hometown since his family had trouble paying the monthly bill. Said “I actually need my teachers, who know me and understand me, to help me, and I don’t have that,” he said. “I just keep thinking, ‘Oh, my God, I might not pass.’ I’m just really scared for the future.”

In many schools, especially those with a lot of low-income students, many obstacles can prevent children who live in poverty from making it to class: a parent’s broken-down or a teenager’s need to babysit siblings, for example. But online learning presents new obstacles, particularly with uneven levels of technology and adult supervision.

Lets be together in this fight against the worldwide COVID 19 Virus.