Abstract
After years of mandatory remote education, there is still a question that remains to be answered: “Is the online medium inclusive enough to be deemed a solution?” As classrooms relocate to online environments and pedagogies rely on technologies, it becomes imperative to ensure that no one is left behind and education remains accessible to every learner. The issue of the universality of access to technological resources in India mingles with various socio-economic disparities that hinder the successful implementation of online education. This chapter attempts to analyze and bring forward the factors that may contribute to the stark contrasts regarding the practicality of the online education scene in India, including accessibility, gender, socio-economic factors, and policy issues. In mitigating the impact of an educational disruption (e.g., global health crisis) as well as the future adoption of online instruction, this chapter summarized the topics that need addressing into themes: content understanding, learning outcomes, technological, pedagogical, and behavioral.
TopMain Focus Of The Chapter
This chapter takes the discussion forward by focusing on the structural issues that hamper the quality of online learning, taking the case of India. This descriptive study reports the challenges faced by the students that hamper the learning experience in the online medium of education. Specifically, we address the following questions:
- 1.
What are the structural challenges regarding accessibility that the students face in an online learning environment?
- 2.
How did the COVID-19 pandemic affect the challenges of online learning?
- 3.
How inclusive is the online mode of education in India?
Key Terms in this Chapter
Synchronous Learning: A mode of distance learning where all the students and the instructor attend the stipulated classes at the same time. It allows immediate feedback as it entails real-time interaction. This is in contrast to asynchronous learning where the learning and instruction do not occur at the same time, such as watching pre-recorded lectures, assignments, etc.
Inclusivity: Ensuring equal access to resources as well as opportunities to everyone, especially those who are at the risk of getting marginalized. In this context, it refers to including everyone regardless of their differences and vulnerabilities in the learning process that shifted online due to COVID-19 Pandemic.
Brick-and-Mortar Education: It refers to physical infrastructures such as school buildings and classrooms that provide an in-person space for social interaction.
Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST): In India, SCs and STs are constitutionally designated socioeconomic groups that are severely disadvantaged in society. While SCs have been the victims of the Indian Caste System historically, STs are formed by the indigenous tribal groups in India who were left behind in socioeconomic indicators of development.
MOOC: Stands for Massive Open Online Course, it is a way of delivering learning content online with no restriction on who can take the course and the number of learners.
Education Technology: Often abbreviated as EdTech, it is a common term for all technological innovations and implementation in the classrooms and broader paradigm of education. It entails the usage of computers, software, and equipment as well as technology-enabled education practices to facilitate learning.
Structural Challenges: These refer to problems that are a result of the biases embedded in the fabric of social institutions. These biases create advantages for some members of society disproportionately and disadvantages for some (who may be already marginalized).