Digital Educational Encounters

This is a story of the online learning experiences of five students during the Covid-19 pandemic — three were in higher secondary school and two were preparing for competitive exams. The students belong to Hazaribag district in the state of Jharkhand, which has recently emerged as a destination for educational migration from nearby villages, districts and sub-districts. It has been severely affected by the recent crisis. This article is to understand the current state of education for students of higher secondary and competitive exams, their ability to access and participate in digital educational interventions, and their psycho-physiological well-being.

Vikash Das, is a third year graduation student, and is also preparing for the Union and State Public Service Commission examinations. He said that his coaching, which was essentially more like a guidance program, has been completely closed due to the Covid-19 outbreak, and it doesn’t seem like it will open in the immediate future either. According to him, this probably happened because the only teacher at his coaching class was not in favour of online classes. This teacher also felt that network issues would be a major problem for online classes, and had very little interest in a guidance program without any in-person, two-way communication. According to Vikash, also feels that the group discussions and social interactions were the key strengths of his coaching class. He added that meeting fellow students was a stress reliever, and prepared them for the demands of interviews and public discussions as well. Vikash told me that almost all of the other 10 students, who lived in town only for their exam preparations, left for their respective villages.

Vikash explained that, out of the many options available in Hazaribag, they had all chosen this class because of an unusual combination it offered. First, it was affordable, and second, the use of English, which many of them are interested in. It is unfortunate that the coaching has been unable to provide them with regular, high-quality class lectures. He also told me how some his other ex-classmates were doing. One male classmate, who went to his village during lockdown, has no electricity connectivity in the village. Two young women, who attended classes with him, will soon be married because their education has been totally hindered because of COVID-19.Vikash has been studying with the help of YouTube videos, but he is not satisfied with it.

Gracy (name changed) is a teacher at a government higher secondary school, and is also preparing for other higher posts and State Civil Service examinations. She finds that the unavailability of a “separate classroom like space” is a major problem for studying online at home. As a young woman in an Indian patriarchal setting, she is expected to do household chores too despite being busy with her studies. This disturbs her a lot, and adds mental trauma to her on-going coaching classes. She also faces problems of network connectivity and psycho-physiological health due to increased screen time.

As a teacher, Gracy has also seen the other side. Less than half of the students she teaches were able to connect to online classes, so there was very low attendance. Inaccessibility to digital gadgets and the unaffordability of internet data, as the students and their guardians pointed out, were the main factors behind this “online absenteeism”. In many cases, there were no smartphones in their homes, or there was only one smartphone belonging to their parents.

In order to resolve this issue of accessibility, the school teachers devised a temporary arrangement by grouping 4-5 students living nearby, so that at least one of them had a smartphone. Collectively, the group of students would join online classes using a single gadget. However, buying Internet data was another major obstacle in the virtual mode of education. Many parents wondered how they could spend money on data when they didn’t even have the money to feed themselves. Even for those who managed to buy data, the poor quality of audio and video was a constant headache. On the other hand, many students reported that attending online classes significantly increased their screen time, because they had to attend a lot of classes in a day with very few breaks between them, and that affected them negatively.

I further spoke to three higher secondary school students, Tannavi, Priti Kumari, and Nikhil Kumar. Their studies came to a standstill during the initial months of lockdown as schools were completely shut for around 2-3 months. It was only in August-September 2020 that online classes started. Nikhil pointed out that he was not aware of the virtual classes and was only able to participate in them after the end of a full month. He used his father’s phone for his studies which was not always available, and Nikhil missed several classes. His teachers would upload sessions on YouTube, but he found them boring and uninteractive. The YouTube videos were also not very clear, the writing boards were often blurry, and sounds would echo. When students had questions or doubts during the session, they would ask teachers later via WhatsApp, and teachers would write responses on paper, and send photos of it on WhatsApp. As a result, in the virtual mode, two-way communication was extremely difficult for them.

Tannavi reflected on the difficulties she faced during the online classes. Apart from technical issues, class timings were irregular, students wasted time “waiting for others to join” and then ran out of time as they had to join another class. Students were often unable to join classes as they ran out of data or their families would disturb them, during the classes. Priti told me that she shared a newly purchased phone with her brother. But it was often very difficult for them to join the classes or online tests if their timings clashed. Most of the girls also recognized that the expectation to perform certain gendered tasks like cooking food, serving it, and washing clothes posed a major obstacle in their education. These became especially pronounced since they were spending their entire time at home.

The students added that their lab work, which constitutes a significant part of their internal and external assessments, was severely affected for subjects like chemistry and physics. Priti mentioned that since getting practical experience for her subject, physical education was not possible, she found it really difficult to understand the theoretical content. All students talked about the dilemma surrounding their Board exams. There was the fear of getting Covid-19 if classes resumed and a simultaneous pressure to complete the syllabus. There is now an added
anxiety because increased screen time is leading to health issues such as day-long headaches, eye-burn, disenchantment, and loneliness. For young people, person-to-person communication with their friends and peers are modes of stress relief and part of the social learning process.

Education is not only about studying the facts and figures in books; the application of that learning to their immediate environment is equally important. Students feel this aspect has been most impacted by the lockdown. Digital platforms and online learning have the potential to revolutionize the educational sphere, in particular by diversifying the accessibility of educational content and quality lectures. However, as the students have pointed out in these interviews, it comes with its own set of limitations. In the absence of two way communication, and effective collaboration between teaching and learning peers, the process becomes monotonous and unempathetic. At its worst, online learning can mechanize education and learning processes. Another aspect to consider is the potential increase in social inequalities because not all areas have equal connectivity, and not all families have access to gadgets. So policies in the future must address this gap. Much more research is therefore needed to understand the positive and negative impacts of the virtualization of education, both from the perspective of teachers and learners. Better and effective initiatives should also be taken to minimize the known socio-medical and other risks of digital learning.

References
Babbie, E. (2011). The Practice of Social Research (12th ed.). Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

Mandali, R. (2020, December 01). Covid-19: Preparing for Competitive Exams. Deccan Herald. https://www.deccanherald.com/supplements/dh-education/covid-19-preparing-for-co
mpetitive-exams-922075.html

NDTV. (2020, June 12). Covid-19 News: Parents’ Launch Online Campaign Against Holding Board Exams Amid Pandemic [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Klwv1M4SB4g

Sarfaraz, K. (2020, December 10). Covid-19: Students Want Board, JEE, NEET Exams Postponed. Hindustan Times. https://www.hindustantimes.com/education/covid-19-students-want-board-jee-neet-exams-postponed/story8k0xz1b5lZAVbf86O5o3YN.html