INTRODUCTION:

In this paper, the authors will talk about the impact of corona lockdown at various levels in Indian education system. The screen usage which was allowed to students only in restricted manner is the new normal now. The education system of India is widest in the world. India has the highest number of students studying in different levels of education. Indian education system is divided into 4 levels, one is the lower primary level consisting of children of age group of 6-10 years, the second one upper primary with an age group of 11 and 12 years, the third one being the high school of age group 13 to 15 years, and the last one being the higher secondary with the age group of 17 and 18 year than the school, students are categorized as graduate level and the postgraduate level (Shodhganga, 2008).

All the students have their daily life attached to their school and institute/university no matter at which level. The students in India rely completely on their teachers and their place of education for their daily knowledge enhancement and in learning (Nazeer, 2012). The teacher-student bond is very strong when it comes to the Indian education system (Divyashree, 2018). The teacher knows each student of their class by name and assess his/her work personally. A typical Indian classroom is characterized by long hours of lectures by the teachers. The Indian students have adopted the personal teaching and learning by its teachers over the years and has developed his mind to grasp in knowledge by sitting and writing in the class.

Due to the pandemic widespread the schools and institutes were called to shut immediately at the beginning of the month of March 2020. This sudden closure of schools, institute and universities have put a great impact on the students of India at all levels. According to UNESCO, it affected around 32 crores of students across India (UNESCO, 2020) And, by the end of March 2020, the epidemic had spread more than 185 countries and resulted in the shutdown of about 90 per cent of schools, colleges and universities which affected around 1.38 billion students all over. The spread of the epidemic and the sudden closure of the schools and colleges/institutes in India bought a great transition in the teaching of the education system in India. The shift of teaching from the classroom to online was very swift and very quick that it hardly gave time to the students as well as the teachers to adapt to this new technological change in education system. Sometimes MBO can also help teachers (Kowar, 2011).

Indian education system was never whole solely dependent on the technology to educate its student. Technology was a part of the day to day routine when imparting lectures in the classroom (Thakur, et al., 2013). India never had adopted the virtual teaching mode in teaching and learning of the student. Creative approach has been needed in education (Agrawal and Kushwaha, 2012). So, this sudden and new shift of online teaching is broadly adopted by 90 per cent of the schools in India to complete its classes and lectures. The screen usage is creating concern in the minds of parents because the students are plonking themselves in front of camera for several hours (Shukla, 2020). Parents are in dilemma that their children are not getting quality education because online mode can never be a replacement of physical education, on other hand children are playing with their health by restricting themselves in front to computer screen for several hours.

Impact on junior level.:

Junior level in school is the classes that range from 1st to 5th class and the age group of the children being 5 years to 12 years. This level of students needs complete attention from a teacher while learning and writing their work. The children of this age hold a very short span of attention and concentration. They need to be completely involved in some activity when making them learn some topic. The Indian education system suddenly shifting from the old and use to model of chalk and talk to online classes, has made both the students and the teachers in a position where they have to adopt this technology immediately (Roy and Jain, 2014). The impact of this immediate shift is that the children are not able to focus for a long time on the computer and on the online lecture. While the primary level school teachers finding their way difficult to control and get the focus of the children back for their long hours of teaching.

Due to the pandemic and all the nation shutting down, the children being the most sensitive to be affected fast and quickly, are forced to stay indoor with only indoor activities. Since no outdoor playing and no physical activity, the children are not able to get out their best and keep their focus intact for a long time. Such an age group of children tends to wander around more easily and hence the shift of teaching style has greatly affected this group of children.

Impact on the senior level.:

Senior-level is the group of students that range from 6th class to 12th class. This group of children is old enough to understand the technology and enjoy the technology for their homework, or for playing games. As the pandemic caused the country to shut its schools in the month of March, 2020 being the most crucial month for the Indian education sector. This is the month where all exams take place of all levels, from school final term exams, board exams to entrance exams for various professional courses like engineering, medical etc.

These entrance exams and board exams decide the career of the students and give them the direction of their life. Board exams are very crucial in India and play a very important role in building the career of the child. It has always been held in the month of March and the students prepare for it for past one year and are mentally and emotionally ready in the month of March to give its best and decide what it wants to pursue in future. Over 30 lakh students would sit for the board exams held by CBSE in 2020. Total 18,89,878 students would sit for class 10 exam and 12,06,893 students would sit for class 12 exams (CBSE, 2020). But, COVID-19 has put a hold on their lives and their dreams which is negatively affecting these students and demotivating them as days are passing.

The government has taken initiatives by providing online free education portals for the students so that they have undisrupted learning (ETGovernment, 2020). The students appearing for various exams feel a great pressure, as there are clueless how simultaneously they will give their board exams as well as entrance exams of repute courses like IIT, AIIMS and various other university exams like Delhi University. This clueless period for students in this band is making them anxious as they are bound to study and prepare with a deadline of dates given to them. Their mind is trained to prepare themselves within a limited time given. Not having any clarity over dates and exams brings in a great psychological effect.

The Delhi government had taken steps to promote all the students to next class below the 8^th grade and, is waiting for the disease to come in control so that the students of higher classes can give their exams and make their careers accordingly. It is again a very negative impact on the students who are the future of their family and in turn of the country.

Impact on graduate Level:

Graduation level is the level in which the student is the immediate level after 12^th class. Here, in India, the student is said to be the college, institute or university. Now, when the pandemic hit India, it was the onset of the examinations of all the colleges, institute and university. The exams were about to start maybe in the second or third week of March varying for each educational center. The Universities gearing up for the exams with few lectures left to be taken by the faculties and courses nearly approaching to the finishing line. The closure of the Universities and Institutes were called on. Here, many universities and institutes made the efforts to complete the course and take online lectures via various platforms like Zoom, Microsoft team and Google meets. Most prevalent used on line platform for teaching initially was Zoom, later all shifting to Microsoft Teams. This sudden shift of online teaching without planning and not having it prepared beforehand by almost all Indian Institutes and Universities of India, caused the students to become passive learners and not actively and seriously participating in these lectures. This pandemic making them wander what to do next. They finishing up their online classes and institutes even making efforts to take their exams on software’s like Moodle. The students of graduate level are in the environment where they have to think and write. The written exam is a 3-hour long process where they are asked to write long and short answers. While Moodle being software, in which the answers are of objective time and the time limit is reduced to 30 minutes to 1 hour. This kind of exam is restricting their thinking process and tuning them to put less efforts. Online teaching was never a part of the curriculum of the institutes and was never in the format of teaching in Indian education system; it grabbed less attention of seriousness in students. This lack of seriousness, making the student more passive learner was another impact of COVID-19 on the education system and Indian students.

Impact on the Post Graduate Level.:

Post graduate level is the last level of education system and is the most important one also. Here, the student is at the level of starting his career (Nazeer, 2015). The student is all set to join the new company or is set to start his own business (Parida, 2017). She/he is at the most exciting stage of his life. The company may be his dream company and the job might his dream job. The announcement of the complete nationwide shut because of the COVID-19 came a little later one week after the schools and colleges being shut. Now, this complete lockdown was announced by the prime minister of India, on 24^th march 2020. By this time, the companies were set for their next financial year to start in April and with the fresh set of employees and recruitment. The students whether it be of M. tech or MBA or any other post graduate program, they were all in the process to join the company and start new phase of life (Madhav, Sandeep and Caleb, 2014). This all has come to a halt, as there is lockdown in the country and the workings of the companies have stopped. This lockdown was not only in India, but was taken by 186 countries after India, to stop the spread of corona virus (Kumar, 2020). This worldwide lockdown has resulted in loss of billions and even jobs of many in all parts of the world. The dilemma with the students is that, the jobs are still waiting for them or they have to wait for some more time. The companies are in the revival mode of policy as they see a new and different crisis in the company and the country. The policy makers are framing in new terms as they have encountered such situation for the first time. The placed students are not clear whether the company in which they are selected is ready to take them on the same package and on the same position as promised before the pandemic. Hence, the impact of COVID-19 on the students of post graduate is the pressure of their job security. The budding entrepreneurs who were about to start their business and ventures are also finding themselves in a tuff and turmoil situation whether to start right after or wait for the market to revive.

May it be any category of student level, the pressure and the psychological effect on them is same. They all are finding their future and their goals in dark. The government cannot risk the life of the students till the pandemic situation is not in control. The spread of the pandemic is very quick and very deadly. The students being the future of the country can wait till the corona virus is not eradicated or till the government doesn’t find the vaccine to it.

Online/Virtual Conferences: A growing trend:

The corona virus has not only disturbed the Indian education system but has impacted the entire education system all around the world. The students all around the world are suffering because of this deadly virus. The lockdown of the entire world has a little greater impact on the Indian schools, colleges and universities as the Indian education curriculum lacked the online teaching and learning. The learning management system in India is presently on a toll and the future of the education in India is bound to be changed and so is the learning process of the Indian student. There are many learning management system (LMS) coming up and being adopted by the education institutes. ICT tools being added in the daily curriculum and pedagogy of the system (Vox, 2020). COVID-19 pandemic has threatened the whole world (Lu, et al., 2020). Daily thousands of people are losing their lives. The entire work culture has been affected. In Indian colleges and universities, the adoption of technology is still in introductory phase. The A Category colleges and universities are taking a lead in adoption of internet and technology but B and C category colleges are still in the nascent stage in technology adoption (MHRD, 2016). The author will reflect on virtual meetings happened during COVID-19 lockdown in the colleges and universities of India. In this commentary article the author will reflect on the usage of virtual meetings and conferences during this COVID-19 lockdown using Gibb’s reflection of cycle (Gibbs, 1988). The six key elements of Gibb’s reflective cycle discussed.

Figure 1: (Gibbs, 1988)

Description:

Due to COVID-19 pandemic all colleges and universities in India shut down from 25^th March’2020 onwards. Many colleges were not able to complete their scheduled courses and classes. Exams were pending and are still pending. Suddenly the flow of study was stopped due to coronavirus pandemic. The daily communication between students and faculty members stopped and the daily official communication also stopped between faculty colleagues. Initially people were unable to understand what is happening and how they will continue with their work. Afterwards, zoom software started floating on the surface. Later on, other software like Google Meet, Microsoft Team, CISCO Webex and GoToMeeting also appeared in limelight (Banerjee, 2020). Prior to corona virus lockdown there were no such talks virtual meetings but that pandemic highlighted the need of technology (Bennett and Grant, 2020; The Hindu, 2020). In college and universities people started taking classes online with the help of software. The virtual meetings started happening between faculty members and college authorities for continuous monitoring on the situation (Vaidehi and Girija, 2017). Few faculty members have seen it as an opportunity and started taking online webinars, workshops and FDPs. At present, the scenario is completely different, daily many webinars, e-workshops, online quiz and classes are going. It can be said that Indian colleges and universities very well adapted themselves towards technology and a paradigm shift is visible.

Feelings:

There are mutual feelings regarding virtual meetings/ conferences in Indian education industry. As we are approaching towards Web 4.0 (Gattullo, et al., 2019), most of the students have welcomed the concept of online classes and exams. Few faculty members also enjoyed taking online classes and scheduling meeting one after another but many faculty members were not too much comfortable with this idea of virtual conferences. Arranging all the hardware in this COVID-19 lockdown scenario was a challenge for them. Many of them have not update their laptops since long because they were working on college computers. Few of the faculty members showed resistance in taking online classes. According to them they are not very much comfortable in explaining the concept online because physical interaction is much needed. In colleges students were giving online quiz and test but there was no-one present for their supervision. Faculty members argued without supervision, it is hard to achieve sole purpose of examinations. The author has done some interviews with the faculty members and students. The summarization of interviews has been mentioned below.

Faculty members and students feeling good because:

· Virtual conferences mode provides them option to complete their pending course

· They were able to accommodate more participants from remote locations in conferences and workshop which was not possible otherwise due to lack of infrastructure and location constraints

· The online platform provided an opportunity to college heads and directors for continuous monitoring of situation by calling conferences and clearing their doubts.

· Faculty members found it a good skill addition which they wouldn’t have opted otherwise.

· Faculty members recorded their sessions in virtual conferences, now they can run it even in their absence during physical classes.

· Students are liking it because their studies are not suffering, it is true that physical interaction between students and faculty members is irreplaceable but still online mode is working for them.

Faculty members and students are feeling bad because:

· There is no office time in virtual conferences. On many occasions, heads even schedule virtual meeting even after normal office hours.

· Due to online conferences, faculty and students are busy most of the time on their laptop and it is not good for their health and eyes.

· Old age faculty members find themselves hard to adopt in online meetings and conferences

Evaluation:

The evaluation is based on good and bad experience. The good experiences of faculty members are that their continuous interaction with the students which will help them to motivate their students during this COVID-19 scenario (Careers 360, 2020). Students have related it with the good experience because their travelling time is reduced and they are able to utilize that time in their study. During this COVID-19 lockdown, a new trend of webinars is trending in India and abroad. It is a good experience that continuous knowledge sharing is going on through virtual conferences. Few faculty colleagues have shared that they are more active because of online platforms, they are getting more updates and starting working on their professional accounts as well (Janakiraman, 2018). Many colleges are organising online workshops and they don’t have to give infrastructural support as well so they are earning money and disseminating knowledge with minimum investments.

Bad experiences:

Many faculty and students are raising their voices that we are approaching towards dangerous situation by continuous usage of laptop and technology. Sometimes during conference call with a student, it has been noticed that fake entrants enter the conference room just to disturb the whole meeting (Iftikhar, 2020). Few of the faculty members have reported that they got abused and harassed during online conferences by fake attendees. The worst experience is related to security issues while doing online/virtual conferences through zoom software (Singh, 2020). Zoom company CEO himself accepted that the software has certain security issues and they are coming with new upgraded version to counter that problem (Hamilton, 2020).

Analysis:

The overall analysis of this situation suggests that this situation started on panic mode but the overall flow of virtual conferences and meetings augur well for the faculty members, administration, heads of the colleges and universities and students. Because of this COVID-19 lockdown, almost all the online platforms like edX, course era, Udemy, CPL learning have observed a massive uptake in their courses (Chaudhary, 2020). The knowledge sharing and collaboration has been increased a lot during this period (Kandri, 2020). The author can say, this pandemic has made an overall paradigm shift in the Indian education industry. The adoption of digital technology has been accelerated like anything. Educational institutes, business houses, computer and online software providers are coming together on these virtual platforms. Many workshops and training program are going on in virtual meeting in which the facilitator is training the faculty members on making online course content and lecture recording. A new trend is coming in Indian online education segment and new opportunities are floating on the surface as well.

CONCLUSION:

Some resistance is coming from faculty members, staff members and students for online/virtual meetings. Kurt Lewin’s change management model suggested three stages unfreeze, change and freeze. Those who are showing resistance for online/virtual meetings. They should try to understand it through Lewin’s model of change management.

The faculty members and students who are showing resistance for online and virtual conference should understand the need of this change.

UNFREEZE:

Recognize the need- Virtual conferences are needed otherwise interaction at various levels will suffer in colleges and universities.

Determine what needs to be change- They need to change their working habits and become technology oriented. Technology has already changed the offering of colleges and universities worldwide.

Encourage replacement of old behaviour- If they will change their old habits and adopt online technology for offering education and delivering live lectures, it will completely change their profile and they can involve global audience in those virtual conferences without any cost.

Currently upper management of all colleges and university is supporting the adoption of this new virtual meeting and conferences because it is the need of hour. Without it, it is hard to track pace of courses, exams and daily communications.

Management is ready to plan those changes and train faculty members if they are not understanding virtual meetings platform.

CHANGE:

Few can argue that this change is not a planned change but even in Indian education scenario since past few years technology adoption was in introduction stage. This pandemic has just highlighted the need of that adoption. If all faculty members and other staff members will continue to adopt the technology-based meeting, it will definitely add to their skill set and they will feel more connected with the world on all issues.

REFREEZE:

COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the pace of online/virtual conferences and meeting. Every industry is looking for sustainable options of cost cutting. The education industry can continue with the changes adopted during the pandemic phase. These online meetings/conferences should not be for short span of time, even after COVID-19 pandemic the college and universities will keep using these online platforms for better knowledge enhancement, skill enhancement, collaboration and to cut the operational cost.

ACTION PLAN:

Every challenge came up with some new learnings, if such situation arose again than all the officials, faculty members and students will be capable enough to continue with their courses and duties online. Some resistance is occurring in the air because those people are not acclimatized as per usage of modern technology which helps them in conducting online/virtual meetings with students and their bosses. If such situation will arise again, there will be less or no resistance and more support from every faculty and students. In this phase many people have used it as an opportunity to connect with a greater number of people. The virtual meetings platform provides such opportunity in which an individual can connect with larger number of audiences in single. In one word, it can be said that preparation will be better if such situation arises again.

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Received on 22.06.2020 Modified on 18.07.2020

Asian Journal of Management. 2020;11(4)395-401.

DOI: 10.5958/2321-5763.2020.00060.8