Lockdown impact: Online education now a new normal for government, ed-tech platforms

As millions of kids take online school classes from home globally including in India, government along with private education sector have a great responsibility to offer online e-Learning to more than 60 million college students and 1.5 billion school students worldwide, experts said on Thursday.

Private colleges in India which were already offering online education for last two decades now have a massive surge in e-Learning demand to meet. "e-Learning or online education is the new normal. In future, we will see the proliferation of information technology tools and gadgets, post-COVID-19. But internet and broadband will remain an issue," said Professor NK Goyal, Vice Chairman, ITU APT India and former adviser of Gujarat Technological University.

If e-Learning apps like BYJU's and Khan academy are targeting schools, others like Adda24x7 are offering specialised coaching for entrance exams like IIT and JEE. Robust connectivity is undoubtedly critical for the success of e-Learning.

According to Rajan S Mathews, DG, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), post COVID-19, there will be a surge in online education by schools and colleges in the country. "The telecom industry is fully prepared with 99.9 per cent network capacity. The telecom companies have taken appropriate measures to meet the surge in traffic due to online education and other online activities using telecom infrastructure," said Mathews.

Union Human Resources and Development (HRD) Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank recently said that the government is offering a slew of educational applications and platforms for both school and higher education institutes. In addition to teachers, Nishank urged parents and students to make maximum use of online education to ensure their academic continuity is maintained.

The World University of Design (WUD) claims that it has collected materials for online learning across its courses during the last one year. "WUD is using technology-enabled AI, supervision technologies and video conferencing and other tools to enable virtual learning. This includes a mix of online platforms for sharing files, conducting meetings and lectures in association with online services & resource providers like Coursera, Bloomsbury, EBSCO etc. as partners in its strategy," said Dr Sanjay Gupta, Vice Chancellor, World University of Design (WUD).