The World is currently fighting one of the worst health crises in the recent times. The corona virus epidemic has disrupted normalcy in every sphere of our life. The life as we know it has come to a standstill. India has the world’s largest population in the age bracket of 5-24 years. This accounts for a huge pool of students who are enrolled in formal education system in the country. With the need to contain the virus, many countries are implementing measures to reduce gatherings of large crowds. Our schools are not immune to these actions, nor to the spread of the virus.
Many countries have now implemented measures in their education systems – from banning gatherings to the temporary closing of schools. Therefore, due to the Pandemic the following decisions were taken to ensure the safety of the students:
-
The central and the state government announced the closure of all educational institutions around mid of March,2020. The closure was initially announced till 30th March 2020 but with the imposition of lockdown, the closure has been extended.
-
The Board Exams of the student in class 10th and 12th which were scheduled to take place when the lockdown was announced have been postponed.
These decisions were taken to adopt and promote social distancing as a preventive measure for the spread of the virus through human contact.
This loss in time will have a great impact on a student’s life if steps are not taken to ensure that this Pandemic does not affect studies. Many education Institutes using Indian Educational Technology and with the help of various startups are attempting to do the same.
-
Virtual classrooms a reality
Various schools and education institutions are trying their hand at virtual classrooms. With the help of various online platforms and startups the teachers have brought classrooms to students houses through the medium of internet.
Virtual classrooms accelerate innovation and collaboration. It facilitates dynamic exchange of concepts between students with the next level of interactivity compared to what's practiced in a traditional classroom. As all the activities which consumes the energy of the students such as getting ready early in the morning catching the bus, etc are eliminated the virtual classrooms have shown that the attention span of the children increases.
-
Free services for school students
One of the unicorns in the edtech sector, Byju’s is offering free access to students from class 1 to 12, until the end of April. A Mumbai-based startup, Toppr has made its services free for classes 5 to 12 while another Mumbai based venture Lido Learning has extended the free trial period for its online courses from a week to 14 days.
-
Digitalizing traditional schooling
Interactive on-line tutoring platform Vedantu has gone a step ahead and partnered with colleges in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, urban center and Kerala to alter lecturers to use its platform for giving live categories to their students. beneath this initiative, colleges and schools will use their own content and lecturers, but deliver classes using content from Vedantu on its live and personalized platform. Schools and other educational may also elect end-to-end on-line tutorials. ViDU, another Bengaluru-based edtech startup, has additionally started giving free live on-line classes and assessment solutions to schools through which schools can live stream their classes from school.
-
Continuity in preparation for competitive exams
Unacademy announced it'll conduct free live online classes across competition exams like UPSC, banking, railways etc. The corporate additionally announced that the educators from across the state can give their time to the current initiative and ensure the courses for various exams are on track and over 700 live classes will be conducted per day.
Impartus, another Bengaluru-based edtech startup that gives innovative video learning solutions, is currently giving virtual schoolroom free to all Indian colleges and schools, to make sure that students still have live and interactive access to their lecturers.
While the coronavirus unfold across the planet might not have contained however, the education system continues to sustain itself. These startups have made education accessible to students, even though the students have not been able to attend school.