1. INTRODUCTION
The devastating, unforeseen pandemic of Covid-19, gave an enormous jolt to the entire world and significantly disrupted the functioning of several sectors of the society. The repercussions of this pandemic have been widespread and extensive. Due to the unexpected closure of universities and schools, ‘education’ has come up as one of the most affected sectors. This situation gave an impetus to online education to blossom. Online educational technology proved to be a saviour in such testing times and helped to facilitate learning online. Online learning, a lesser-known concept, gained recognition overnight and has turned out to be one of the biggest assets in promoting education amidst such challenging situations.
This article will provide an insight into the various initiatives taken to promote online education Ed-tech companies, the challenges they face and their legal implications.
2. GROWTH IN ED-TECH START-UPS
Covid-19 has provided an opportunity for the Educational technology sector to flourish. Ed-tech companies have been raising their funds and investments since March. Their business has seen unparalleled growth. For example, Byjus saw 7.5 million new users on its platform, Unacademy recorded 1.4 billion watch minutes while Toppr saw 100% growth.[1] Other major start-ups which saw growth in their business include Board Infinity, Vedantu, and Great Learning. According to BARC and Nielsen, there has been a 30% increase in the time spent on education apps.[2] They do not limit their scope to just formal education but also encompass higher education and vocational education. Most of their content has been made accessible to the users free of cost so as to boost the number of audiences receiving formal as well as the extracurricular education.
India’s share in this sector is not as appreciating as was expected; however, with the onset of these start-up organisations, there has been an increase in the number of employment opportunities, ranging from teachers to web developers to the marketing sector and more. These start-ups are hiring people from India, which is indirectly creating employment in this sector. The upcoming years are expected to witness a larger increase in this number.
3. HOW CENTRE AND THE STATES ARE WIDENING THE SCOPE OF ONLINE LEARNING
3.1 INITIATIVES TAKEN AT THE CENTRE LEVEL:
The initiatives taken by the Government for the education sector in the current situation are commendable. The Ministry of Human Resource Development has launched several online platforms for different purposes. The major ones are as follows:
● For audio-video content – Swayam (Massive open online courses) and Swayamprabha (digital courses on tv)
● For digital content – National Digital Library, e-PG Pathshala, Shodhganga, and E-Shodhsindhu
● Other learning platforms- Spoken tutorial, Virtual labs, E-Yantra, and FOSSEE
● E-Governance – University Enterprise Resource Planning (SMARTH)
● Track your progress- VIDWAN (research network) and Shodh Shuddhi (plagiarism detection software)[3]
Additionally, the HRD ministry has also issued guidelines, which regulate the time of the online sessions, based on the hierarchy of the classes. This will not only facilitate the process of learning but also ensure a healthy atmosphere for the same.
Google’s announcement of partnering with CBSE[4] to train 1 million teachers on digital tools was another great initiative towards promoting online education.
3.2 INITIATIVES TAKEN AT THE STATE LEVEL:
Different states have resorted to using different creative ideas to make their online classes more interactive. For instance, teachers in Kerala are using animations to provide easy learning for primary school students. Maharashtra has started training for teachers in e-learning[5] wherein 45,000 government teachers will be trained in the first phase.
Maharashtra has also launched 3 Jio TV channels and a radio program for students of classes 10th and 12th [6]. Similarly, governments of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, and many other state governments have started virtual classrooms, smart learning and online tools through Google classrooms, YouTube, Google meet, Webex etc.
4. LEGAL ASPECTS OF ONLINE LEARNING:
4.1 DIGITAL DIVIDE AND EQUAL ACCESS TO EDUCATION
Article 21-A of the Indian Constitution provides for free and compulsory education for all students. Article 29(1) provides for the equality of opportunities in educational institutions without discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, language etc. This clearly states that every child should have access to online education. The digital divide is one of the major issues leading to a violation of this right for many children. According to 2017-18 National Sample Survey report on education[7], only 24% of households have an internet connection, while 66% live in villages and only 15% of them have access to the internet. There is a lack of equal opportunity in online education due to this digital gap. Only 8% of all the households with members aged between 5 and 24 have both a computer and an internet connection. Despite efforts of central and state governments, this inequality in education is expected to see further increase.
Recently, Telangana High Court has directed the state government to formulate the education policy in a manner to offer equal opportunity to rural and tribal students[8] as they do not have proper electrical facilities, internet connection and substituting teaching through TV channels may not be that effective.
4.2 ED-TECH AND PRIVACY CONCERNS
With the tremendous growth in the sector of online education, it is very crucial to look into the privacy concerns around it. With technology, comes law to prevent its misuse. Education technology start-ups have to abide by the intellectual property laws, data protection laws, and the rules of the Information Technology Act, 2000. Recently, a video conferencing app called Zoom infringed the right to privacy of many individuals as it intruded the video calls and injected unwanted elements like pornography into digital classrooms. The Ministry of Home Affairs also issued a warning against using this app. Some other platforms like Unacademy and Byjus also reported infringement of their data such as username, password, email addresses, phone numbers, and login information of the subscribers. Once The Personal Data Protection Bill 2019 becomes an act, it will be the most effective Act for protecting the people in India from these similar infringements of data.[9]
5. OTHER CHALLENGES FACED BY THE ONLINE LEARNING
With the flourishing of online education, there also follow certain challenges, which are being faced by the students and teachers, while trying to adapt themselves to online learning as the only source of education in the current period:
● Many teachers have never catered to the use of online platforms before and do not possess the appropriate skill- set of operating online classrooms. Adapted to the age-old method of traditional classrooms, switching to online platforms for teaching is not convenient for them. Initiatives are being taken to train teachers in online education; however, producing the required results needs time and effort.
● Schools and colleges are charging exorbitant amounts of fees from students for conducting these classes online. During this pandemic, when the source of income for the majority of people is not guaranteed, timely submission of fees is not certain. Despite regulations from the government, many private schools and colleges are charging the same amount of fees that they used for offline education.
● As more and more online platforms are popping up, the companies are in a bid to maximise their profits. In situations like such, providing quality education does not remain the primary agenda of the educational apps.
● One of the main issues is the high-speed internet connection, which plays a crucial role for students and teachers to attend online classes and as mentioned above, many students in India do not have the luxuries of smartphones, computers, and smooth internet connection.
● Indiscipline emerges as another major issue in online learning. The decorum of the class is disturbed as students play songs, share their screens with unsavoury elements, and abuse teachers in the chatbox by registering through fraudulent ways. This not only creates havoc in the classroom but also suspends efficient teaching.
6. CONCLUSION
The rise of online learning has overcome the major challenge of providing education in such difficult times. Where teachers are given proper training to make full utilisation of the online platforms, the various ed-tech sectors are coming up with free access to their contents and more user- friendly methods to exploit online tools. The government of India needs to ensure the availability of resources to students in the country, so as to break through the digital divide. As online learning is increasing in India, the government needs to have more stringent laws on data protection. Currently, India is lacking behind protecting the privacy of people from the ed-tech sector. The Personal Data Protection bill needs to be passed soon, so as to have a proper framework to regulate the ed-tech sectors and smooth functioning of online learning.
[1] Trisha Medhi, Meet the 6 ed-tech start-ups that have seen record growth amid COVID-19 lockdown, Yourstory (Jun 16, 2020), https://yourstory.com/2020/06/edtech-startups-growth-coronavirus-byjus-unacademy-toppr-startups, accessed 14 July 2020 [2] Id. [3] Richa Choudhary, Covid 19 pandemic: 'impact and strategies for education sector in india, accessed april 16, 2020. access at: https://government.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/education/covid-19-pandemic-impact-and-strategies-for-education-sector-in-india/75173099 [4] Manash Pratim Gohain, Google announces partnership with CBSE to train 1 million teachers on digital tools, ET Government.com (Jul 14, 2020, 16:49 IST), https://government.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/digital-india/google-announces-partnership-with-cbse-to-train-1-million-teachers-on-digital-tools/76957884, accessed 16 July 2020 [5] ETGovernment, Maharashtra to build teachers’ skill in e-learning, ET Gvernment.com (Jul 14, 2020, 11:27 IST), https://government.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/education/maharashtra-to-build-teachers-skill-in-e-learning/76953785, accessed 16 July 2020 [6] Tulika Tandon, Maharashtra Online Classes: State Govt launches 3 Jio TV channels & a radio program for 10th, 12th students, TimesNowNews.com (Jul 6, 2020, 8:32 IST), https://www.timesnownews.com/education/article/maharashtra-online-classes-state-govt-launches-3-jio-tv-channels-a-radio-program-for-10th-12th-students/616896, accessed 16 July 2020 [7] Provita Kundu, Indian education can’t go online – only 8% of homes with young members have computer with net link, Scroll.in (May 5, 2020, 7:30 am), https://scroll.in/article/960939/indian-education-cant-go-online-only-8-of-homes-with-school-children-have-computer-with-net-link, accessed 16 July 2020 [8] ETGovernment, Telangana High Court directs govt to formulate online education policy to offer equal opportunity to rural and tribal students, ETGovernment.com (Jul 15, 2020, 9:57 IST), https://government.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/education/telangana-high-court-directs-govt-to-formulate-online-education-policy-to-offer-equal-opportunity-to-rural-and-tribal-students/76972188, accessed 16 July 2020 [9] Diksha Munjal, Personal Data Protection Bill: Compliance costs to rise for India Inc, The Hindu (Mar 3, 2020), https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/info-tech/personal-data-protection-bill-compliance-costs-to-rise-for-india-inc/article30971116.ece, accessed 16 July 2020
Comments