2020 has been a rough year for everyone as the pandemic broke out. Every single human was confined between the four walls. But, no doubt, it had actually made the world smaller through online schemes and technologies. But, is the phrase “the world got smaller” ample. The answer seems pretty complicated.
The pandemic and its consequences got hold of each and every student, be it a kindergartener or a university student. Yes, we had our classes, “online classes”, no doubt. But, did these online classes made the students well prepared for the offline exams? That is the real question.
If we look on the brighter side, yes, it really did help the students in a way or two, at times like this. These online classes gave the opportunity to every student, or, would it be more honest to say “some of them”, to think or act more productively even when we were confined in our rooms. And yes, it also gave an opportunity to learn to be more techno-friendly, to us, no doubt. But, are these brighter sides, as I call it, enough for appearing the REAL offline exams for the students. I don’t think so, because these online classes had drawbacks on the dominant side, in my opinion.
First of all, if we consider the situation of the majority of the students of a developing or rather an underdeveloped nation like ours, where the majority of the students have a poor financial status or background, these online studies had a humongous drawback. There is a large no. of students who cannot actually afford the resources for online studies, even a low budget smartphone, or if they had it, not a proper connection. Did they actually join the classes? This seems to be a question, of which the answer is very ambiguous.
Secondly, the same basic question arises on my mind, if we tend to look at the picture of those students who are from the rural areas where there is not a stable connection available or no connection at all. I do not think they attended the classes or if they did, it would not have been a very fine experience, in my opinion. Do you think would they be able to sit for the offline exams? Or if they do, would they be able to stand up to their expected “good grades”.
Lastly, let us look at another picture. What do you think the conditions or the experience would have been for those students who had taken up or chosen technical subjects or simply subjects or streams where they have practical exams? I suppose that they might not, apparently, got the proper knowledge or the experiences which they were supposed to, or usually get from inside the laboratories, or field studies. In fact, I am facing this exact difficulty. I have taken up Linguistics as my specialization paper, for the degree of Master in English Literature. It actually is a very technical paper even though it is included in the humanities’ stream, where I have to learn how to transcribe a word in a linguists’ approach. I faced a real hard time trying to learn these things through online classes. My point here is that some streams or rather some subjects are meant to be taught in first hand inside a classroom on a board rather than on an online class. Only then, we could actually learn those technical things.
Now, as the doors are opening up, we the students are told to sit for the offline exams. Yes, if we look at the first two concerns of mine, an offline exam sounds pretty much fair of a solution for them. But let’s put the whole picture to a single screen. Will we be able to rock the offline exams, perform well and get good grades? That remains a mystery for the majority of us, the Students.