Vedika Rekhi
With classroom teaching suspended in the times of the disrupting COVID-19 pandemic that has exposed the fragility of our practices of cohabitation and educational infrastructure, the contemporary challenges for education loom large on the horizon. The outbreak has greatly accelerated the need to sustainably switch to user-friendly online learning mechanisms and practices at this crucial time in the lives of students. With the annual calendars facing a huge roadblock and the ambiguities with regard to the pandemic, online education has to be accepted as the new ‘normal’. Online learning platforms are the need in order to develop a sense of continuity and society while not jeopardising the future of scores of children whose initial jubilation of extra holidays faded away, sooner than later, with the realisation that we will not be returning to our beloved educational institutions for a long time to come. In a short span of time, Zoom and Google Classrooms, platforms that had not been heard by most, became routine. It’s the era of the internet, Artificial Intelligence, big data, 4G and 5G, and cloud-based platforms, among other technologies that have now acquired a foothold andhave been put into the service of education.
Jammu and Kashmir has weathered many ups and downs, and with the pandemic casting its dark spell all over the world, the students here are reeling under an added uncertainty owing to the internet restrictions and lack of connectivity. While students and teachers everywhere are trying to accustom themselves with the formerly unfamiliar ‘online terrain’, J&K educational system has compounded difficulties.
Since the abrogation of Article 370 in August, 2019 in the erstwhile state, an ‘educational paralysis’ has crept in Kashmir, with the educational institutions closed down and the communication blockade firmly in place. According to the Government orders, limiting the internet connectivity in the union territory is in the interest of the “sovereignty and integrity of India”and is owing to the “recent spate of militant attacks on Indian forces, militant infiltration from Pakistan occupied Kashmir, and their use of high-speed internet to disturb public order by uploading provocative videos and false propaganda.”However, the discontinuity it has created has not only impacted the students’ academic performance but their socio-psychological development. The factors were detrimental enough for students’ learning and development, making it hard-hitting for them to re-orient themselves in systematic school routine. Even when the Government made efforts to reopen the educational institutions, the attendance remained skewed with worried parents afraid to send their wards to schools and colleges in a conflict-like situation. While there were moves to conduct remedial classes over the course of winter, it needs to be understood that the educational institutions are not merely instruments of literacy set up for the purpose of conducting examinations. They rather form the platform to nurture creative energy and scholarly ideas apart from providing the environment that nurtures indispensible individual growth in a community setting.
Within months of the post- Article 370 revocation lockdown, the two and a half month long winter vacations in Kashmir were announced till mid-February. This was followed by the UT administration’s order on March 11, 2020 regarding the closure of all educational institutions, in order to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. It is almost a year that children in Kashmir have been able to attend schools and colleges, the only exception being November when they went in to take assignments for the holidays and took instructions for online exams.
The realisation that the bewildering altered world is here to stay, forced the country to take recourse to remote learning through smartphone applications, holding classes and examinations via Google Classroom and Zoom, sending notes and recorded lectures on e-mails and whatsapp class groups and broadcasting lessons on TV and radio. However, this approach is seemingly more difficult for students from Jammu and Kashmir where access to the internet has been restricted for security purposes with limited 2G internet servicesbeing restored only in January 2020.However, only the Government-authorized “white-listed” websites were accessible and restrictions on social media remained in force until March 4, 2020.The internet shutdown and breaks in education faced by the students in Kashmir as a recurring feature is supplemented by fear, stress, trauma and anger. In the recent past as well, the 2G connectivity has been scrapped on some occasions of militant activities in Kashmir during the pandemic. In Jammu, the 2G services are available and broadband speed, too, is restricted in many areas. With the on-going pandemic, it is extremely difficult to get new internet connections set up and certain areas do not have access to stable network connectivity, making it extremely difficult for teachers and students to tide over the obstruction in education.
While the rest of the country has tried to switch to online mode of education, 2G services and restricted Wi-Fi connectivity that isincompatible with most dynamic websites is making it difficult for students to catch up with their peers from other states in university work. The abnormality of the situation and urgency of setting up conducive technology are the need of the hour for J&K. The university projects, viva-voce, placements, applications and online interviews to universities for higher studies have all ground to a halt as students of the region lag behind their counterparts in the other states. Limited bandwidth presents a complex difficulty for students who are trying to learn from YouTube videos as they stream with multiple disruptions, low clarity and keep buffering. Other significant concerns include recording and uploading class lectures by teachers taking far longer duration than would have been with better internet facilities, the utmost need for a safe learning environment and the need to create competencies for teachers and students to operate and navigate devices while also, taking into account the specialised needs of disadvantaged and marginalised students. Additionally, the COVID-19 social distancing regulations make it unsafe to attend tuitions that were a means for some students for supplementing school learning and keeping up with the peers.
The loss of learning and restricted social development opportunities for the students of the union territory are some of the immediate effects.The opportunities that the ‘Right to Education’ provides area far-fetched dreamfor many studentsat this point of time. Many families cannot make both ends meet and are struggling hard to keep their children enrolled in schools and colleges. Numerous human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have repeatedly urged India to restore full internet access in J&K to facilitate education in the COVID-19 pandemic.With the lack of 4G internet facilities that were earlier easily accessible at cheaper prices to all strata of population, students from traditionally disadvantaged sections of society have more difficulty now compared to students from higher socio-economic strata who have Wi-Fi installations at their homes, even though restricted. This is resulting in wider educational disparities, surge in poverty, increased drop-out rates, and greater risks for marginalised children. In purview of the financial constraints, the children face the hindrance to learning as the parents are unable to divert the extra resources towards additional learning technologieslike Wi-Fi connections, separate smartphones and laptops for all their children, whose entire education is now dependent on such technology.
The inevitable exclusion of students from the Union Territory is extremely evident as they fail to access documents on Google Drive and it takes hours to download whatsapp documents of larger megabytes with the network errors surfacing multiple times and sometimes not getting downloaded at all. Universities in Jammu and Kashmir have difficulties holding up online lectures for students who have inconsistent internet access, as 2G is an obsolete technology meant to access static websites. It is extremely difficult to retrieve high data files on 2G. The students paying for online examinations have to face major server errors making it virtually impossible to perform the function at hand. On a payment gateway, a user should be able to retrieve a certain amount of data within a specific time period. On 2G, it’s not possible to retrieve the data and a user may be logged out from the sessions repeatedly, making it unbearably difficult to pay online. Similarly, it is extremely difficult to download attachments on mails on 2G while the entire education system in the pandemic relies on virtual learning technology. In terms of holding online tests and examinations, many times the documents fail to upload in the stipulated time and students from the erstwhile state fail to be considered as an exception in classrooms having students from myriad backgrounds and locales.
The gigantic educational crisis the world faces in COVID-19is being salvaged by virtual learning platforms. In stark contrast to other parts of India and the world, J&K is being educationally disadvantaged as platforms like Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams are a cause of frustration for students, parents and teachers alike, as the connection snaps multiple times, there is no continuity in lectures and it is difficult to upload and transfer documents, power point presentations and video recordings of class lectures. The impact of Covid-19 on Higher Education is the sudden shift to distance learning which comes with different dimensions, most particularly the lack of technical infrastructure, and support tools for distance learning, lack of experience in assimilating online teaching pedagogies and complexities of managing exams and student assessments in the lack of good stable, internet facilities.
In the times of COVID-19, the reasons for parents from Jammu and Kashmir urging their children to study in other parts of the country and the world, at large, are amply clear. It is extremely difficult to cope up with students from other regions, when the basic educational setup is missing and the goal of basic literacy becomes more of a privilege than a right. The situation is extremely vulnerable as lack of infrastructure and continued disruptions in education might lead to a generation of students not interested in and far backward than their counterparts from other states. In the pandemic period, thus, it is imperative that the Government devise creative solutions for ensuring that the educational needs of all areas are met while being adaptable to the deep uncertainties, security threats and the constantly shifting dynamics in the region so that students have access to the necessary technologiesfor learning.
(The author is a graduate in History from Miranda House, University of Delhi and currently pursuing Masters in Politics and International Relations from Pondicherry University)
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