Indeed, life has changed in many ways post-COVID. The unprecedented toll that has taken on all of us is long-lasting and in some cases may be permanent. Like every aspect of society, the education system and student’s life, both have impacted in COVID scenario.
Students may not have realized the bearing of COVID on their learning capabilities, but teachers and experts have realized the dent it has created in the learning system.
Pre COVID life, imparting education was in one straight direction and it was mostly in physical form through the physical classroom. Post-COVID, the entire education system suddenly turned into screen-based learning and in such a situation self-learning became the mantra in the whole learning ecosystem.
An earlier system of teacher-controlled classrooms turned into self-disciplined online mode learning. In online classes, self-learning and using your own raw talent became the key to acquiring knowledge and skills. However, for school going students, it was definitely a challenge.
Not only for school students but for their teachers and parents too, online education was a first-time experience. It was important to understand the fact that no education system was developed and ready for conducting online education since the whole pandemic scenario was unexpected.
On top of that nobody knew how long it would last and many schools administrations could not figure out how long they would continue online education. So how much investment to make in online education infrastructure was a tricky question.
For graduate or post-graduation students, the learning process was no different. Being an audit, they were expected to utilize time and online infrastructure more intensely; however, in general, it was observed that college students did not pay the required heed towards online education and unfortunately, the basics in certain crucial subjects might have been compromised.
Learning-related subjects that were related to statistics or mathematics could be the most impacted by pandemics. In many colleges and universities, extra classes were arranged to salvage the damage; however, they too were online mode, the knowledge transfer to students wasn’t measured yet.
Challenging time also brings some opportunities and so on during COVID time. The opportunity available for graduate students was to enrol in an online certification program available at no cost or at much-discounted cost.
Being a pandemic situation, many organizations offered these online certification courses for students to add value to their academic learning. It will be a matter of study to check how many students availed them of this opportunity for skills enhancement.
Not only students but parents also have a crucial role to play in the process. Since students are spending more time at home than they used to spend at school or college earlier. Controlling students in online education is definitely a cumbersome task for teachers.
Students, whether school or college going, need to understand and ensure that they make up for this loss at the earliest so that at least their future career will not be at stake.
Companies coming to campus placements are vocal about the academic depth they are experiencing with students and their feedback for students is to scale up domain knowledge and certain mandatory skills. It is prudent for students who are aspiring for a corporate career to take this feedback seriously.
There are multiple ways through which students can master mandatory skills. Going through online recorded classes is one such initiative expected from students. Online education having recorded classes is indeed an advantage as it can be referred to multiple times.
Further self-learning and continuous focus on content and application-based learning are the keys to success. Considering the situation, it is expected from students to put in much more extra effort such as involving themselves in internship projects or online certification programs etc.
Life will not be easy post-pandemic as competition for jobs in the economy will be much more intense and skilled base.
To earn a good job and to further retain it, students have to advance themselves through various platforms where there will be the pressure of delivery, quality maintenance, customer satisfaction and so on. But that is the only mantra as of now to survive and sail through this global pandemic.