For quite a few years, education was restricted to four walls. We all can agree on just one thing the COVID 19 pandemic has been able to bring just one change for good. The biggest debate of the era stands out to be online education vs offline education. While classroom education has its own sets of advantages, it comes with disadvantages like the environmentally ruining process.
School closures in the pandemic year 2020 have disrupted the educational pattern worldwide. Some evidence from highly developed nations shows that the pandemic has directly impacted students. On the other hand, online education has prospered after COVID19. This blog will give you detailed information about the rise of online education and its impact on students.
Table of Contents
Impact of COVID19 on Education
In April 2020, 188 countries announced a lockdown in their schools, making it impossible for almost 1.5 billion students to access education. Schools being open on one day and closed on the other days caused significant disruptions in the educational patterns of students. Many countries are still working to compensate for their academic losses.
While 90 percent of the nations adopted digital ways to continue their education, almost 60 percent of the countries could not get it done for pre-primary classes.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) – in collaboration with UNESCO, UNICEF, and The World Bank – has been monitoring the situation across countries and collecting data on how each system is responding to the crisis, from school closures and remote learning to teacher vaccination and gradual returns to in-class instruction.
Current Status and Progress
Theoretical education in the classroom is not what students need. They learn quickly through graphics and by looking at some real-life experiences. The multimedia content attracts students, and the urge to complete it with productive learning is increased. It is hard for students to stick to their commitment to classroom learning.
The Indian education system is traditional and rigid. However, with time it has started giving more attention to it afterward. The number of universities grew from 190 in 1990 to 993 in 2019. Eighteen thousand new colleges were established between 2008 and 2016, which means that approximately six colleges were set up almost every day!
Online Education
The platforms that let you access your classrooms and make sure that you have education are ed-tech platforms.
Advantages of Online Education
In a fast and very competitive world, any sort of learning does not go in vain. Although, students need to learn as much as they can. They should not be restricted to any course of their choice. It seems to be pretty much productive for freelancers who want to polish their skills for further progression.
- Online Learning increases productivity
We often come across the saying, “learning is earning,” which is entirely accurate when you consider it practically. You learn to increase productivity and get a better job. It proves beneficial for you and the organization you want to go for. Students who wish to learn new things are more productive than those who do not practice any course. Online learning platforms for students help them reach their goals.
- Cost and time effective
It is cost-effective because students tend to save commuting costs and then lunch money in online education. This is one of the biggest points of online education vs offline education, where online wins. It is pocket-friendly because you can find curses that align with your objectives and budget, and boom, the next thing you know is that you have learned it ultimately.
The time is taken to move from one classroom to another, waiting for teachers to come, going back and forth to educational institutions is what we refer to here. In online classes, this time is saved and students can get into online courses quickly.
- Flexibility in schedule
Online classes are great because you can start learning anytime you want. You can keep your day job and study at night. In most courses, the lectures are pre-recorded and you get to understand them at any hour. Do everything you have got, and then check when you are in the right state. Set your academic goal and try to keep track of what have you achieved.
In classroom education, students are forced to study even if they are not in the right state mentally, and teachers never know what students are going through. Moreover, everything in an institution works as per the rules and regulations that ruin the scope of productivity.
- eLearning is a greener option
Students are taught to save the environment, whereas governments, schools, and colleges do not implement it themselves. So what are we teaching students when we cannot bring change in higher levels of administrations?
Online learning is a way to reduce the negative impact on the environment that emits from the transportation and the manufacturing of books and notebooks. Building infrastructures using all sorts of environment ruining objects like electricity, desks, and books, everything is saved. Guess we have forgotten the concept of sustainable growth.
- Retention rates are higher
We all know the length of specific courses pisses us off, which is the primary reason we drop that in between. But when it comes to online education, students have shown improvement in keeping up with the lengthy courses. As per the Research Institute of America, students continue to keep their course has increased by somewhere from 25% to 60%.
The above are the advantages of online education. However, the traditional classroom education system is not a better way of teaching in the long run.
Disadvantages of Online Learning
Every set of education comes with its own sets of challenges, so does online learning. Online education has the following disadvantages.
- Creates Isolation
In a world full of extroverts and people craving attention, it is hard to get heard easily. This is why it becomes essential for students to learn to present themselves in front of people. With online education, learners are supposed to stay at home and learn. Furthermore, lacking to create a highly interactive environment.
- Asks for extra expertise for Tutors
Tutors have to design a course so that students tend to understand their teachings in one go. It takes more than just the experience. Teachers have to be familiar with the latest trends that the students tend to follow. Learners find it easy to learn when they get to relate things with their life. Tutors face the challenge of making their course in the best way possible.
- Technical Issues always Prevail
If you live in a place with lesser connectivity, you might find it hard to cope with your regular sessions. You need to get into a website that provides pre-recorded sessions, like Bizgurukul. It is one of the best online learning platforms in India. However, technical issues can arise from the tutor’s end, which leads to a waste of time.
Offline Education
Offline education is the traditional way of educating learners. If it were not for the pandemic, the revolution that has come would have never been possible. The changes that were supposed to occur after ten years were postponed to 2020 because of a pandemic.
Advantages of Offline education
Majorly, offline education is the best for students who want to get disciplined in their lives. Some of them can be productive because it involves the direct interaction between the teacher and the tutor.
- Direct Interaction
Direct communication helps in a better understanding of the essential nature of a student. It helps in working on the areas of improvement needed. It also helps in building the root of a student by the teaching environment provided. Finally, it lets you have a healthy competitive environment to work on your productivity.
- Promotes Extra-Curricular Growth
Some students are not made for academics, and we all can agree that. They only need to explore their capabilities to know what they desire in life. This is how a school can fuel the growth of learning extracurricular. Academics is not everything. A student can only know it when they face the challenges presented to them as extracurricular activities.
- Doubts Cleared Instantly
Doubts and issues that students have could be solved instantly in offline education, whereas, in online education, some students fear asking questions; some of them have to save their doubts till the next session. When it comes to clearing the root of the problem, it is solved in direct interaction with the teachers. This is why offline education still holds importance even after the success of online education, so it is the win-win point in online education vs offline education.
Disadvantages of Offline Education
The offline study could be the best way to enhance your concentration and knowledge, but it could not be said to be the best education method. Disadvantages could be multiple, but here are the top 3 of them.
- Time Consuming
If you consider online education VS offline education, the best debate of the pandemic year, you would know that one of the great reasons people prefer online is because offline education is time-consuming. However, traveling time covers most of their daytime. The time that could be saved in devoting to other things like- doing homework, playing, and having their own time is divided into going to school, coming back from school, and making their beds. This is why it consumes a lot of time from a student’s life.
- Loss of Study in case of emergency
If the student cannot make it to the school due to unavoidable reasons, it becomes a deal to cover the syllabus done on the same day.
- Wastage of resources
The described syllabus taught at school asks students to save trees and the environment for the future generation, but that could be seen as lacking in the school itself. Sustainable growth starts from the early stages of development, and the traditional education system teaches students to waste pages and get their things done on notebooks.
Comparison Table
|
S. No. | Online Education | Offline Education |
|
1. |
Learn anytime and anywhere |
Location and time-specific |
|
2. |
Flexible and convenient education |
Rigid courses |
|
3. |
Great focus |
More distractions |
|
4. |
Teacher options |
Specific teachers |
| 5. | Doubts can be cleared in sessions. |
Teachers are easily accessible. |
Wrapping Up
The choice between online and offline education ultimately depends on what one is looking for. Both sorts of education come with their own sets of challenges and benefits. The purpose of this article was to give you insights into the online and offline education systems.
