BENGALURU: Two officials of the University Grants Commission have analysed the challenges to a shift that India is yet to see in the higher education realm -- online universities. They say how the corona pandemic has served as a a powerful reminder to reassess the strengths to overcome the vulnerability of academia -- in the context of online education.The virus, they believe, has attacked three deep-rooted educational ideas in India. “First, we think classroom teaching is inevitable in higher education,” say Dr  G Srinivas, Joint Secretary, and Dr Salil S, Education Officer with UGC.

They said there is no evidence in education literature to prove the advantage of classroom instruction over online. While there are pros and cons in both methods of teaching, what matters is how we challenge the imagination to meet the learning outcome of our students, they say.Salil told TNSE that any medium (face-to-face vs remote vs  blended) is right as long as it generates the expected student outcome.  The current mode of texts, questions, assignments and written exams are not much imaginative. Therefore, that needs to be challenged, he said.

Second, is the false dichotomy of online versus face-to-face education --  and where online learning is viewed as a subset of distance learning. However, officials view remote teaching as a format of education and delivery model in itself. “The success or failure of online learning is dependent on the course design and the learning outcome created,” they say.

Third, the view that ‘teaching’ is all about the content. Officials found that the best teachers during the Covid season are not creating content to reinvent the wheel, but curating content from multiple sources and packaging it for their institutional context... as the student deserves compelling content in engaging ways.They see a potential to shift from video classes to online interactive exercises, and teachers becoming designers of a learning experience.

Even with a countrywide penetration rate of around 40%, and national institutions shifting to online mode because of their preparedness, officials raise a question on accessibility to digital learning spaces. “Popularization of low-cost devices like Raspberry can overcome device access issues,” they add.

Among the challenges are digital competence of faculty members and institutional leadership, which can be overcome with training. The more immediate cases to work on include the need to create non-Googlable assignments, online evaluation methods, models of online peer-grading of tasks, and non-time-bound examinations, they say.Areas to step up the ‘remote learning’ effort  are -- designing virtual tours, interaction design, facilitating immersions and non-screen assignments at a distance.