How is CoronaVirus Boosting Online Education during the Quarantine

Nainika zoomed out of her online ballet classroom. She has promised herself to be more regular with those ballet lessons too. She feels it helps her regain her composure — both mental and physical. Social isolation has almost pushed several like Nainika to go in for more online classes that are not left to academics alone.

Timothy regains his composure as the evening settles in. It is the one time when Timothy is on his drum set, unmindful of what has left him quarantined at home, and he connects with his other friends and his percussionist teacher online. Together, they are lost in time to the improvisation that they create to walk out of the anxiety, even though it’s momentarily.

And it is time to create the same connection as we move on to the fifth month of ‘lockdown’ as a precaution to check the spread of COVID-19.
Social isolation has raised several questions that need to be answered one by one as the number of days confined increases.

Here is how some of the social, medical, and health factors during the pandemic have given a fillip to online education not restricted to academics alone.

Stress and anxiety

To battle a situation that has crossed its 100 days mark, you have to be ready to understand what you are feeling. Stress, however, is often caused by sad as well as happy situations in our lives.

Stress, when under normal circumstances, won’t affect much when you move from one city to another. However, it may not be the same in the present pandemic scenario.

And anxiety cognates with fear. It is a response supported by fear. During such times, stress and anxiety overlap, making it difficult to cope with the psychological reactions.

There is various study material available online to deal with anxiety and stress-related questions that the inmates of the house cannot address.

The last few days have seen the rise of several such Apps dealing with such issues, reflecting on the multitude of stress conditions that the human psyche is currently undergoing — isolation, work, health, losing opportunities and loved ones, and much more.

The current pandemic is the perfect trigger for stress because it is both unpredictable and uncontrollable, so the need for online learning lessons besides academics, to deal with stress has burgeoned. And education on the issue is on priority as it affects more than 2 lakh students that have faced the consequences of the university lockdown.

The loss of revenue changes the role of the universities

Despite their excellent financial position, the international universities are also offering — ‘online-only’ — alternatives to international students for first-semester subjects.

The revenue from international students is way above the cost of teaching them in many countries, particularly Australia. And also, are the other revenues attached to it. The visiting students contribute to increasing the country’s economy.

These universities are in an excellent financial position to brave the weather. Still, they will also look at reducing costs and, hence, cut on a semester by taking a cut on the teaching staff and going online with studies during a lockdown.

With more than 1.8 lakh students being affected by not studying in classrooms, buying online with the university’s material has almost trebled the number of students seeking online education due to the pandemic.

But that alone will not be all. Assignment help from service providers will be imperative to complete assignments or better understand them, giving a further impetus to the online study industry.

The government should lift the funding cap

The international student revenues have almost doubled since 2013 -2020 before the coronavirus hit slowed it to a grovelling halt. If the governments in some countries lift the funding cap, students can accommodate after the lockdown is over. On the one hand, the government’s Ministry of Home Affairs is refusing access to international students this academic year. And the Education Ministry has put a stop to all access for domestic students up to next year and beyond. With this current scenario to persist, online education is the only alternative left for students seeking knowledge from 2020-2023 and beyond.

What can Leaders do?

They help isolated people from coming together for building community resilience. The best example of it was seen in 2014-2016, during Ebola in China, the psychological support hotline was extremely beneficial for the people just like online education for dealing with faraway patients is.

In these online counseling classes, education should be imparted on the importance of “quarantine,” why is it done? The duration for quarantine is 14 days, within which the symptoms show.

People maintaining social isolation should be clearly informed about why they’re isolated and how to come out of precarious situations.

Summing Up

Coronavirus quarantine boosting online education isn’t a myth, but a challenge that people have not come out from. Therefore the social distancing still needs to be maintained despite more than 100 days. And therefore, it is very important that governments from all countries take gigantic steps to check the growing pandemic. This can only be checked with due research on developing the vaccine that can check it completely.

An attempt should be for building solidarity across our communities. It is possible by going all out to be ‘online’ not only in teaching academics but also by being supportive in stressful moments. Whether they are national borders or some different political worldviews that keep us apart, during the incursion of the pandemic an attempt should be for bridging all gaps and work with solidarity to move forward. Taking a cue from other nations that have suffered the onslaught, the attempt should be to cut across all borders and mitigate the social and psychological impact of the dreaded pandemic.