Online Education Around the World, a Yes or No?

Remember 31st of December when we all claimed that 2020 was going to be our year. Well......things didn't turn out that way. There were a lot of unexpected calamities that hit the entire world examples include the world being on the brink of war, the PIA airliner crash, locust swarms, the earthquakes in Turkey and the Caribbean and the list goes on. From the looks of it this year the odds aren't in mankind's favor ( Hunger Games pun noted )

Perhaps the most impactful on our lives has been...*drum roll please* the 

COVID-19 pandemic. Huh, remember the days we all used to go outside whenever we wanted well.... things have changed. The virus has proved to be so much threatening that governments of countries around the world started to impose restrictions and eventually lock downs on their citizens and just like that the doors of educational institutes were closed. 

There had to be some solution children just couldn't sit idly at home doing nothing. The show had to go on* Hunger games pun 2*. Henceforth, the solution arose that online education be put to use.

So emails were sent, acknowledgments were made and thus began the new era of learning during the 2020 Pandemic. For real though, we must salute the educational institutes for their farsightedness. BUT, their were some problems inevitable that we all most probably faced, well at least I did.

• Okey dokey, the first thing : The mode of online education. Many institutes were trying out this method for the first time so not everyone was familiar with it or knew how to use it. This goes for both teachers and students. A lot of students were like " Ammi my Microsoft teams account isn't working" or " I can't login to my account". Speaking of which i remember that I called my class teacher at least a dozen of times to tell him that my account wasn't working.

• Secondly, parents were too much involved in their child's online education. Take the example of my mom, she literally attended all of my classes with me and whenever I couldn't answer a question I could feel her piercing glare and hear mutters of " Such a Naliaq daughter I have raised can't even answer such a simple question no wonder teachers don't like you". The point of this is, excessive interference of parents like mine just makes online classes a hassle and a whole Mission Impossible: try no to get a chappal thrown at you after the class ends. 

• Next, there are the students themselves. The young, rebellious, never happy students. Most of whom are forced to attend online classes or they do attend them but just for the sake of "attendance". How they do that well an example is waking up in bed at the time of class simply joining the class and then turning off the video and going back to sleep. Then if the school staff initiates a test timetable they are the first to object saying that the teachers have taught nothing. 

• Perhaps the most serious setback of online classes is that not everyone can afford the basic things required to attend online classes, or even if they do have such facilities, they can malfunction at any time. An example is Internet Connection, it varies day to day and it is not guaranteed that it will always have a strong connection. Moreover, some parents cannot afford to buy laptops or mobile phones for their children during such times when even there is a shortage of food in their houses.

However, during such an unpredictable time online education has served as a savior for children, even if there are setbacks of online education there are numerous advantages of it as well. 

These were my opinions, be sure to share your opinions on online education in the comments down below as well😀

Ayesha Abdullah

Section: 10-T

The City School, E-11 Campus