After the covid–19 pandemic, the daily life routine of human beings changed in a large context. The life structure in the field of health, environment, education, social work, development etc. have changed daily. Now the sky of the Omicron virus is affecting human lives all over the world.
The higher education field in India has also been going through the tunnel of large changes at the governmental policy level as well as at the private level.
India is the world’s third-largest country in the field of higher education, following China and the U.S.A.
All educational processes like teaching, learning, researching, conducting examination are affected due to the covid -19 pandemic. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the new changed teaching and student learning process during this pandemic.
United Nations one organization, UNESCO conducted one research to understand the impacts of pandemics on students, it’s found that about 90% of students get affected due to the covid pandemic. In all sectors of human life like Social, Cultural, educational, economic, psychological etc. covid -19 pandemic affected.
Along with educational institutions, academic year-end exams and competitive exams were postponed all over India for a long period.
In this process, all the educational institutions in India during the pandemic are forced on the backfoot, right from primary school education to university level higher education.
One major impact this pandemic was brought in global education is that lockdown has led to a sudden shift from classroom teaching to online modes of teaching and learning processes in educational institutions.
Finally, because of the huge population in India, the covid -19 pandemic was affected badly. Shifting from classroom teaching to online teaching in an education system has made a great change in the pattern of learnings with certain positive and negative impacts.
In India, online teaching has shown a vast impact on the future of thousands of students belonging to the poor section of society. Till today in 2021, some educational institutes are not well equipped with modern technological facilities in the classroom. So that it will affect the student's learning process.
Now, online learning is easier for students during this pandemic situation because students could enjoy their education by sitting at their homes but many students in rural India are facing the problem of internet connectivity.
Impact on Higher Education
On 24th March 2020, the central government announced a complete lockdown all over India. Covid-19 pandemic lockdown affected crucially. As everyone knows, this was a crucial time for the education field.
During the covid-19 pandemic when schools, colleges, institutions, and universities were closed, mobile applications and virtual meeting platforms like zoom and google meet became the virtual meeting hubs.
These new changes were happening in an education system but the backbone of the education system like teachers was not aware of this new technology.
During the lockdown, some teachers were teaching only for completing the mandatory online teaching process. But these teachers were not well aware of the online method of teaching. Just for completing the procedure of attendance most of the students were signed in.
Online teaching is one big challenge because students hardly pay attention to the teacher's online class methods. Development and change are one part of human life. Covid-19 pandemics have been one challenge for the lifecycle of human beings.
Modifying internships, research programs, teaching patterns etc. is the need for higher education in the current situation of the covid -19 pandemic.
In India, every state government must come forward with some unique ideas and creative strategies related to higher education to make higher education more accessible to every student, especially for Divyang, tribal students, girls etc. It will create more inclusive education.
Issues and Challenges in India’s Higher Education Sector
Most of the public and private universities in India are centered in metropolitan cities. It is necessary to spread higher education in rural, remote, and tribal areas for inclusive educational development of the country.
The budget deficit, corruption and lobbying by the vested interest group, Centralization of power are the basic reasons for poor infrastructure in public universities.
We need to change the outdated, irreverent syllabus from all branches of higher education. The government can appoint a committee for the review of the syllabus. In the current educational system, there is a wide gap between industry requirements and university level education.
Over-centralization, bureaucratic structures and lack of accountability, transparency, and unprofessionalism are some of the challenges in the Indian higher education system.
As the number of student's quantity in the higher education system increased, the quality of education and research diluted automatically.
In the Indian higher education system, the reality is about poor funding allocation for research, low levels of PhD enrollment, fewer opportunities for interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research, low levels of industry engagement, Low quality of research work, professor’s vacant seats etc. So, it is necessary to pay attention to these issues.
For giving skill education to a larger group of students, it is necessary to include vocational training in the syllabus as per the industrial requirement.
India is a country with a 135-crore population, automatically India’s higher education is one of the largest educational systems in the world.
The structure of higher education before independence and the current situation of higher education has a huge difference.
In India, providing good quality education is a constitutional responsibility of the Central and state governments. Existing public and private universities can come together to create a good example of a public-private partnership.
It is a requirement of appropriate parameters for ensuring good quality education. There should be strong regulatory mechanisms and government authority to monitor and control private universities with the objective of good quality education and social accountability towards citizens.