Era of Online Education/Learning in India :

World over, people are facing the many disruption due to current pandemic (COVID-19) in their living history. Coronavirus has significantly changed the ways of living, working, teaching and learning. The internet is the new class-room/new meeting room. The pandemic has forced all the teachers to Work from Home and come up with innovative way of imparting education. 

Digital education is new way for teachers and students interaction to each other in future. 

Internet is the most useful technology of modern times not only in our daily lives but also for educational purposes. It helps the students to research things, and relearn the content taught/discussed in their classrooms.

According to the Statista Research Department Report (published in 2020) - India is the second-largest internet user in the world.

The internet based education depends on various factors and robust connectivity along with a better sustainable  collaboration between telecom firms and streaming companies, in lowering the transmission bit rate from high definition to standard definition to develop tools that make learning truly enjoyable.

Technological-based Education in Our Country :

* Radio and Television educational broadcast has been used more than 75 years now.

* Satellite communication in education has been adapted in the business and industry.

* Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE) was the largest communication experiment in the use of satellite in support of developmental and educational programmes in modern times. The telecast via this satellite began in India from August 1, 1975.

* Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and All India Radio (AIR) took the responsibility of broadcasting ETV programmes the selected villages in Six States of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Rajsthan, selected on the basis of their educational backwardness.

* The instructional objectives of SITE were in the field of education, agriculture, health and family planning and national integration.

* About 2400 Direct Reception Television Sets (DRS) deploy for SITE were located in different cultural, linguistics and agricultural regions of the country.

* Television broadcasts via satellite were made available for 4 hour a day, one and half hour in the morning and two and half hour in the evening.

* By the number of success of educational satellite communication. India launched her own satellite, multipurpose and communication system called Indian National Satellite (INSAT) in 1977.

* Major Objectives of INSAT - To produce and transmit varied programme designed to awaken, information, enlighten, educate and entertain and enrich all sections of the people in different part of the country.

* INSAT has also aimed to promote alternative approaches to education for children, youth and adults.

* The local Doordarshan  Kendras and Central Institute of Educational Technology (CIET), NCERT requested to produce relevant programmes.

* Gyan Darshan launched on 26th January 2000; It is an exclusive and dedicated 24 hour educational and developmental TV channel of India. It is joint collaborative venture of Ministry of Human Resource Development, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, IGNOU, UGC, NCERT, CIET, SIETs, National Institute of Open Schooling (NOIS), Department of Space and Technology, IITs, Technical Teachers Training Institutions, Department of Space, DECU, Ministry of Rural Development, Health, Labour, Environment, National Aids Control Organisation (NACO) etc.

* Gyan Darshan has become completely digital in span of fourth year on January 26, 2004.

* India's first exclusively educational satellites EDUSAT - launched on September 20, 2004 by ISRO.

* EDUSAT effectively used in IGNOU, NCERT, CEC, Visvesvarayya Technological University, and Vigyan Prasar.

* In current lockdowns, number of people for online readership increasing and their dependence on e-content increased multifold. 

* Many public and private schools immediately initiated engaging online classes and home assignments were provided online.

* The higher Education institutions to provide 20% of total course through online platform SWAYAM.

Challenges :

* The report of TRAI, only 34% of the total population had access to the Internet in 2017.

* Digital Divide -

+ Internet access ratio of male and female is 70% and 30% respectively.

+ 66% of total population live in rural India accounts for  just 25.3%  internet density compared to the 34% of the urban population having around 98% internet connectivity.

+ NSO reported that urban areas, 20% of households had computers and 39.8% had access to internet. The corresponding numbers in rural areas were 4% and 15% respectively.

* The National Statistical Organisation (NSO) 75th round survey showed that 8.3% households had computers and 21.6% had internet facility.

* Only 17.6% of the youth could use a computer and 18.4% could access internet.

* The Speedtest Global Index, India ranks at 130 out of 141 nations with a download speed of 10.15 Mbps compare to the global average of 30.47 Mbps.

* The National Family Health Survey 2015-16 shows that 86% urban households and 51.5%  of rural households and colour television.

* Lack of technological infrastructure.

* Absence of appropriate digital training and issues related to the bandwidth surfaced.

Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan :

Technology Driven Education with Equity post-COVID

* PM eVIDYA - It is multi-mode access to digital/online education to be launched immediately; consisting of :

+ DIKSHA : for school education in states/UTs; e-content and QR coded Energised Textbooks for all grades (one nation, one digital platform).

+ TV channel per class from 1 to 12 (one class, one channel).

+ Extensive use of Radio, Community radio and Podcast.

+ Top 100 universities will be permitted to automatically start online courses by 30th May, 2020.

* Manodarpan - It is for psychological support of students, teachers and families for mental health and emotional well-being to be launched immediately.

* New National Curriculum and Pedagogical framework for school, early childhood and teachers will be launched : integrated with global and 21st century skill requirements.

* National Foundational Literacy and Numeracy Mission for ensuring that every child attains Learning levels and outcomes in grade 5 by 2025 will be launched by December 2020.

Way Forward :

* To encourage judicious mix of Open Educational Research (OER) along with delivery of education via television/satellite.

* Bridging the gap between formal, informal and non-formal education.

* The institutions need to rapidly move ahead with the help of digital learning both through satellite and internet based tools.

* UNESCO recommended the use of various tools of distance learning programmes and open educational application and platform to reach learners remotely and limit the disruption of education.

* The Institutions of education to pause and review the en-route challanges, limitations and doable road map for marching ahead.

"Education is a virtue; it stays with an individual throughout their life". But the means for the virtue is on the crossroad across the globe due to Corona pandemic. The department and regulators started moving towards developing an online mode of education-as, hopefully, a viable alternative arrangements.

The challanges of the lockdown may become a blessing in disguise in accessing the potential and  the capabilities of our Institutions in responding to the future necessity of online learning.

The digital thrust may be the future learning paradigm, accordingly the Institutions need to augment the faculty training and development programmes on little large and sustainable scale to enable them teach digitally.