Education during lockdown, writes Subimal Bhattacharjee

April 22: Across the country, people are in lockdown now in its second phase to arrest the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Among others, teachers and students are also impacted and at home. Right from March 2020, almost all the education institutes across the world are in a strict lockdown mode and in this condition marking an end to the prescribed syllabus became a tough choice for the education faculties. At this moment of the year, where almost all classes are on a verge to have their final examinations, lockdown made it impossible to organize regular classes and to operate regular syllabus for the educational institutions, teachers and the students. The ongoing board examinations in almost all the states of India are hanging at different stages and there is uncertainty when they will be complete.

COVID-19 has forced our education system to adopt technology as its driving tool to let students understand their books and curriculum. Digital technology and internet based deliveries have been extensively studied and adopted at various scales across the educational spectrum right from primary schools to engineering institutions. Almost all institutes small to big are using various online platforms to interact with students and to send or receive study materials through these platforms. Institutes instructed students and teachers to install various online portals and online video sources which will help in organizing regular classes by sitting inside their respective homes.

Under our Digital India platform, there are platforms like SWAYAM, Diksha and NIOS (National Institute of Open School) that have gained rapid subscriptions over the past few days as these platforms deal with series of online courses which are helping the students to prepare for their post lockdown scenario. Out of these, SWAYAM has around 1900 online courses and its user base spreads over 60 countries. Apart from government sources, private organization like Bangalore based BYJU is also providing a good online database of education material for all kind of aspirants starting from class 1 to 12 and further to higher education studies and competitive exams. BYJU already has over 30 million subscribers.

However, what is most significant is the platform by which such delivery is possible in real time. Thus, video based platforms like Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Jitsi Meet or Whereby are already very common across the globe. Even education delivery via Skype, Viber, Whatsapp and Messenger is also being undertaken in many situations where bandwidth availability is low for quality video sessions. In no time, almost every social media platforms having the video making facilities are now becoming the source of online classes and many are adding video suites to get into the arena. There are also cases in which the child might not own a digitalized cell phone so in such cases, teachers are making their short videos according to chapters and sending it to the parents and to those who have their own cell phones, the teachers are sharing those videos directly to them and Whatsapp is the most common and convenient platform for such delivery.

Much of the mad rush to platforms ever since lockdown started was directed towards Zoom. The ease of using the platform saw a phenomenal rise in traffic and even valuation of Zoom. However, others also have been gaining popularity particularly Google Meet formerly known as Google Hangouts which also incorporates Google Classroom suite. It has become the platform where many schools are shifting from Zoom after a couple of instances of intruders getting inside Zoom conferences have resulted in widespread fears around the cyber security standards of the platform.

In Google Meet, teachers are able to mute and remove participants and meetings cant be rejoined by the students once the teacher has left. Likewise Microsoft Teams which incorporates Office 365 and thus also makes available popular tools like Word, Excel and Powerpoint is a convenient platform for distance learning that is secure and keeps the teacher on top of the calls in terms of privacy and delivery options. Jitsi is a platform which looks very similar to Zoom and also allows the teacher to observe how the class functions including levels of attentivity. Most of the others also are similarly enabling platforms and most of them are offering free enlistment in the current situations.

The fact remains that while facilitation happens via these online platforms for delivery of education, there has to be complete privacy and security. Some of the instances around Zoom bombings and unauthorized intrusions has already set the scare and many governments have already issued warning mentioning the pitfalls. Not only Zoom, but all the applications should undergo proper scrutiny to make an up-to-date approach in order to provide user security solutions.

Since students are at a vulnerable age, they need to be well protected and so the selection of platform is very crucial. Even the educational solutions like SWAYAM, NIOS and Diksha should be checked against any sort of malwares and backdoors. At the same time, not all families have the economic comfort to buy laptops and devices to support such online education and so the government and civil society have to think how to empower children from such families for digital classrooms. IT will be crucial to have these students also come up to speed as far as their learning is concerned.

Needless to say, COVID-19 has set across a new dimension of using technology for delivery of many services and one of the most important areas is education. The advantages are many and this is being understood across the nation and already much grounds have been covered in the last one month of the lockdown in India.

The writer is a renowned cyber security expert and the founder President of ‘JOOKTO.’ He can be reached at subimal@subimal.in