The science of coping with the pandemic progressed far faster than anyone could hope for, but socio-political and cultural worlds have struggled to keep pace. Culture and politics have clashed with science, leaving everyone worse off. We are nowhere near the final chapter of this real-life drama.
The need to do college laboratory experiments in science and engineering remotely due to the COVID 19 Pandemic became necessary for the entire student community, from March 2021 onward. The Virtual Lab repository built under the NMEICT Program of the Ministry of Education, Government of India, was leveraged for use by students to do simulated experiments. The Virtual Labs made a substantial impact and was used by over 7.0M users to meet their curricular needs. This chapter describes the salient features of the impact and how this impact can be sustained through specific initiatives.
Personally, I wouldn’t say the year of teaching online has been a total loss, but I can see it has been pretty much a write off for many students who have found it impossible to engage online, partly because of technological or situational constraints, but also because they have never learned how to learn independently.
It is evident that the continuation of online teaching that was initially viewed as short-term measure beyond a year or perhaps more for some, is leading to higher levels of fatigue despite greater familiarity and ease of using the mode. While most teachers feel that they are now better than before in dealing with pauses, viewing only their own faces, dealing with students’ indifference and ever-changing technological tools, they also feel even more ‘irritated’, ‘demotivated’ and are ‘losing stream’.
The core question I propose to discuss is “What makes the science and the scientist themselves vulnerable, en route to … discoveries in COVID times”? Everyone would agree that better funding and planning for infrastructure, along with an influx of fresh ideas, would help buffer us in times of need. Yet, the ground realities about the relationship between policy makers and stakeholders seems further than resolved. Even after seven decades of independence, why so? A large part of this discussion will focus on the qualitative learnings from history and reflect on how we can apply those in post-COVID times.
In a traditional classroom, the teacher acts as both an instructor and as a guide, but this changes in online teaching. A teacher is now no longer just an instructor but is also a content developer and designer of online curricula. She or he will also need skills in content-communication online. Teachers should also ensure appropriate video and voice qualities and if needed, some enrichment of the content before sharing them with students – all of which make online teachers “super”teachers!
Existing polarizations of caste, religion, gender and class also shape the repercussions of the current crisis in many ways. The switch to online education has amplified the manifestations of caste, gender and class divisions among students. On June 1, 2020, a 14-year-old Dalit girl student committed suicide in Kerala because her family could not afford a smart phone for her to attend online classes. There are many incidents of domestic violence against women reported during the lockdown.
So how do we accomplish our research goals? There was no point pining for a lab that you could not visit. The only solution to this was to redefine our goals.
I envisage a distant, distributed mode of education which is efficient at teaching and measuring learning. It is of great advantage when applied to cases and countries where there is demand for highly quality educated people – in short, a society striving for more education with only minimal capital and financial resources to deliver them.
IASc welcomes the exciting development of a candidate vaccine and wishes that the vaccine is quickly made available for public use. However, as a body of scientists – including many who are engaged in vaccine development – IASc strongly believes that the announced timeline is unfeasible. This timeline has raised unrealistic hope and expectations in the minds of our citizens.
