Impact of Covid 19 on learning, education and health.

INTRODUCTION:

The COVID 19 pandemic has brought a huge shift in all the fields of our life whether it is, encouraging the work from home culture, or partying thorough house party with friends, or taking your business online. 

But most importantly it brings a major shift in the education process of the students. 

To arrest the spread of COVID 19 governments have closed all the universities, Institutes, schools by the end of the March, and at this point in the when these going to reopen is very uncertain. And this uncertainty compelled all the educational institutions to provide their facilities online. 

The UNESCO report estimates that the coronavirus pandemic will adversely impact over 290 million students across 22 countries. UNESCO estimates that about 32 crores students are affected in India, including those in schools and colleges. 

Now let's have a look at how this shift has impacted the education and learning habits of students. 

BANE:

Distraction at its peak:

Maintaining the same focus level during online lectures as in physical classrooms is not an easy task. A normal man's tendency is to prioritize their short term pleasures over their long term goals and this social media and online games are an easy catch for every student over his/her online lectures at any point in time. 

It also disrupts the consistency of a student as no one can remain consistent in what he/she was doing because every time one checks the social media, the new skill is trending this time thus honing one skill at a time becomes a bit more difficult. 

Underprivileged:

In this pandemic where people are struggling for their livelihood, education takes the last position in their priority list. Not every family can afford any smartphones or laptops required for online education. And even if they managed to arrange a smartphone they don't have any internet connectivity in their areas.

Online education has posed serious problems before all poor students and brought stagnancy in their education. 

And this is not it, many teachers in rural areas have not accessed to set up for teaching online, and in case if they have access most of them don't know how to use them effectively. This again creating an inconsistency in the learning of many students. 

Affecting health:

Online teaching directly affects the health of the students. Students have to give seating of a minimum of 6 hours a day for his/her lectures in front of the computers, laptops, or any gadgets, with just a break of 20 minutes in between. Continuously seeing the screen directly affects the eyes because of the radiations pushed by the gadgets, especially for the Junior classes students this will prove a serious issue when this affects their eyes badly. 

Radiations getting into the eyes will definitely cost the students in damaging their eyes at an early age and also causes physical fatigue and illness to the students. 

BOONS:

Peer learning:

Lockdown in schools, colleges, and other institutions, are making people understanding the value and effectiveness of peer learning where everyone is learning something new from and with others. It has promoted the concept of learning and growing together. 

When you learn something with someone it keeps you both motivated and focused. It leads to developing a better and more effective cohort. It also develops better personal understanding and bonds with each other. 

In this lockdown, almost everyone has turned into a student and tried to learn one or the other thing from the other person whether it is cooking, singing, designing, or anything else. 

 

Beyond the limits:

When a student starts learning online the sky is the limit for him/her as there are countless resources available on the internet to learn from on various platforms. Students can learn from tutorials on YouTube, courses provided on various e-learning platforms like Upskill, specific articles on Telegram, or whatnot. 

In fact, many creators have Online learning has opened the door for various opportunities for the students as now they got time to learn anything which excites them, read about any subject, irrespective of the fact that those subjects are part of their curriculum or not. Online learning has allowed everyone to pursue their interests. 

                                   

Conclusion:

The lockdown might have many positive impacts on the learning habits of people, it showed that learning is the continuous process as every member of a family is learning something from each other, implementing it, and doing experiments with it, it might lead to developing a better cohort but there are a considerable amount of adverse effects too. 

Still, a large population of the country are not able to get access to the online education or e-learning thus creating a digital divide, this is a big problem which still needs to be addressed.