Dr Babar Shahbaz
COVID-19 pandemic has disturbed almost all the sectors but education is amongst the most severely hit sector. According to UNESCO, closure of educational institutions around the globe have highlighted inequalities in education, digital divide and lacunas in distance and remote education. While most of the businesses are now partially or fully opened, educational institutions in most of the countries are still waiting ‘green signal’ from their governments to resume routine activities. In an attempt to minimize educational losses accrued amid lockdown, many educational institutions started remote learning by using different online tools and applications. Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan also encouraged Pakistani universities to initiate online education, during very early stage of lockdown, in order to minimize academic disruption. Chairman HEC, Dr. Tariq Banuri, in a message said, “Closing down campuses is an important step to control the spread of the pandemic. But universities also bring knowledge together, and are the places where solutions will be found. No society can risk keeping universities closed for too long.”
HEC issued comprehensive guidelines for online teaching and evaluation during lockdown. Consequently, most of the universities of Pakistan commenced online education during May 2020. Up to now, universities are at different stages of their online education process. For instance, in some universities online or remote classes are ongoing, whereas examinations are being conducted in some universities and many universities have completed the examination process and now preparing for the next semester. In this article, I shall present a quick analysis of online education during lockdown based on personal experience gained, survey from students and discussions with faculty. During the initial stage of online education, there was much uproar in the social media and some groups of students opposed the online classes and also staged protests outside HEC. However, HEC took a solid stand and administration of universities also supported and consequently online education has continued in most of the universities across Pakistan during the closure of educational institutions for students. Although Learning Management System (LMS) has been provided in many universities since long but it was being used mostly or uploading of teaching material and exam results. Therefore, remote teaching was first experience for most of the students and teachers.
During the process of online classes many challenges were faced and apprehensions were raised both by the students and faculty. The biggest concern for the students was internet connectivity. Students from metropolitan cities enjoyed good internet connectivity, but those living in rural areas and remote parts of country faced immense problems in this regards. Online resources like Zoom, Microsoft Teams and LMS consume large amount of data, require faster internet speed and advanced version of Android phone. Thus the factor of social justice was overlooked in remote/online education. Nevertheless, it was considered as only and best available option to continue with online education in universities. Although HEC assured to negotiate with mobile service providers for availability of education bundles for subsidized internet access to the students, but the promise has not be fulfilled. Another apprehension of the students is regarding some specific subjects like statistics, mathematics and engineering. Students complained that it was really challenging to comprehend complex mathematical and statistical operations in online classes. Likewise, practical work requires physical handling of scientific equipment but in remote learning this aspect has to be compromised. Nevertheless, some teachers used the platform like YouTube and uploaded video demonstration and that strategy somewhat worked. Attending online classes from home need proper learning environment to stay focused on lecture. However, students belong to joint family system or living in small house for large families faced difficulties regarding attentiveness and concentration.
Examinations are integral and very important component of teaching process and online examination was also very first experience for majority of the students as well as faculty members. Here different universities used different strategies. Some universities announced that online exams will be held but Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) of students will not be altered. In other words, students have to secure passing marks in online examinations and marks would not be added in overall result and previous CGPA of students will remain intact. This was a rather realistic approach. Some universities adopted the policy of using multiple choice questions for online exams and students took exam through Google forms or LMS. However, educationists agreed that limited knowledge can be assessed through MCQs, and particularly psychomotor skills are rather difficult to evaluate through MCQs. Students also used some illicit means while taking such exams; for example, students of same class made WhatsApp groups and they shared answers of MCQs with one another in no time. Similarly, in many instances group of students gathered in one place and solved the paper together. Consequently, disparity in marks of the students was observed. Open book type exam and assignments were also used for online evaluation by a few universities and mixed approach was also used by some universities.
During the whole episode of lockdown and remote education, a few universities of Pakistan have shown good capacity to adapt rapidly to the crisis situation, however most of the universities still need significant efforts and capacity building in this regard. After recommencement of normal educational activities, remote or online education should be made an essential part of teaching process so as to enable students and faculty to adjust themselves in such situations. Conducting remote classes and online examinations require particular skills that to be learned by most of the university teachers. HEC should initiate customized trainings particularly for those universities which couldn’t perform well regarding online education. Specific modules should be introduced in HEC’s national faculty development programs. Epidemic is gradually fading away from Pakistan and it is hoped that educational institution might resume their normal activities by mid-September. The lockdown has definitely shaken up the education sector, particularly higher education, but at the same new opportunities have emerged. This is a once in a generation opportunity to improve our educational process to streamline with international standards to meet future challenges. After this pandemic, government, education leaders and policy-makers will need to reevaluate learning systems to meet upcoming challenges of digitized world. It is a time for teachers to use this period of disruption to ensure what students learn is actually relevant to the needs and to the survival in a competitive world.
—The writer is Associate Professor, University of Agriculture Faisalabad.
