news details |
|
|
| COVID-19, A Global Pandemic that caused a sudden transition in Education system | | |
Dr. Dushyant Pradeep (Ph.D.-Physics)
The coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic is the defining global health crisis of our time and the greatest challenge we have faced since World War Two. Since its emergence in Asia in 2019, the virus has spread to every continent except Antarctica. We have now reached the tragic milestone of more than two million deaths, and the human family is suffering under an almost intolerable burden of loss. But the pandemic is much more than a health crisis, it’s also an unprecedented socio-economic crisis. Stressing every one of the countries it touches, it has the potential to create devastating social, economic and political effects that will leave deep and longstanding scars.
What is it?
A coronavirus is a kind of common virus that causes an infection in your nose, sinuses, or upper throat. Most coronaviruses aren’t dangerous. In early 2020, after a December 2019 outbreak in China, the World Health Organization (WHO) identified SARS-CoV-2 as a new type of coronavirus. The outbreak quickly spread around the world. COVID-19 is a disease caused by SARS-CoV-2 that can trigger what doctors call a respiratory tract infection. It can affect your upper respiratory tract (sinuses, nose, and throat) or lower respiratory tract (windpipe and lungs). It spreads the same way other coronaviruses do, mainly through person-to-person contact. Infections range from mild to deadly. SARS-CoV-2 is one of seven types of coronavirus, including the ones that cause severe diseases like Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and sudden acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). The other coronaviruses cause most of the colds that affect us during the year but aren’t a serious threat for otherwise healthy people.
It’s normal for a virus to change, or mutate, as it infects people. A Chinese study of 103 COVID-19 cases suggests the virus that causes it has done just that. They found two strains, which they named L and S. The S type is older, but the L type was more common in early stages of the outbreak. They think one may cause more cases of the disease than the other, but they’re still working on what it all means.
What are the most common symptoms?
The main symptoms include:
Fever
Coughing
Shortness of breath
Trouble breathing
Fatigue
Chills, sometimes with shaking
How to Prevent ourselves from infections?
To prevent infection and to slow transmission of COVID-19, do the following:
Wash your hands regularly with soap and water, or clean them with alcohol-based hand rub.
Maintain at least 2 metre distance between you and people coughing or sneezing.
Wear Face Mask
Avoid touching your face.
Cover your mouth and nose when coughing or sneezing.
Stay home if you feel unwell.
Refrain from smoking and other activities that weaken the lungs.
Practice physical distancing by avoiding unnecessary travel and staying away from large groups of people.
Work Planning!!
The main strategy during the preparations to deal with different aspects and effects of the Global Pandemic COVID-19 is to make sure that the maximum delivery of different services to the greatest extent. The working group of people engaged with different smart industries are now able to work from home just from their laptops. They are able to easily follow the protocol of “Work from Home”. Until the normalisation of the present scenario the face-to-face communication cannot be restored as previous.
An evolution of New Education System
These circumstances have impacted the Education system to the largest extent. Maximum percentage of the learners are used to the classrooms and the pedagogy used in the classroom like environment. During this period of time a new Digital Education system is taking shape and playing a vital role to present the solution for this crisis to the students. The new emerging system has its own pros & cons. The large number of students are not well aware of using the technology for the purpose and not even so equipped with required technical tools to achieve the goal to avail the resources of distance learning. But the conditions laid down by the lockdown and certain other protocols have increased the adoption of this Digitally assisted Education System. The learner and the pedagogue are adopting the new emerging pedagogies with pace. All the educational institutions and different other platforms providing online education solutions have been forced to work in tandem. They are being simulated to improve the quality and time bound delivery of electronic content to the students.
The complete Education system is experimenting new pedagogical tools to deliver the valuable e-content to the learners, who can enhance their academic and professional skills without attending the face-to-face classrooms. The new set of strategies to provide online education is creating different new concepts in the system that was already using the ethical methods. The new Education system has been shifted to pupil centric education. The number of online tools make the student and educator to feel close and face to face, to each other. The educational pedagogy has created a great link between e-content, educator, the learner and the technology. This Digital-Technology based education is more transparent. The online availability of different e-learning and assessment tools makes the system favourable and affordable to all classes.
Counter Measures
To encounter the circumstances government has taken so many initiatives in coordination with NCERT and Ministry of HRD to support the online learning of students. Some of the platforms shared online are SWAYAM, DIKSHA, e-Pathshala, NROER and Nishtha for students and teachers. The YouTube based Educational Channels are playing a great role in helping this online learning process.
Measures by Directorate of School Education Jammu
Even in the Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir, Department of Education and Directorates of School Education are playing a vital role in shifting this Education system towards the new era of Digital Learning. The different cells viz. Cultural and Academic Cell, Guidance & Counselling cell and IT Cell of the Directorate played the vital roles in their key areas.
One of their initiatives is Jammu and Kashmir Knowledge Network JKKN, that’s a platform which provides many teaching learning resources for students and technical assistance to the teachers who are contributing this process. Department of School Education has also started a new portal “Manzilein-A career Guidance Programme” for students as a new initiative.
To bring all the efforts under Quality Education Initiatives on one technological platform an Android App has been developed by the IT Cell at Directorate which is now available on Google Play-store as SARAL DSEJ Online Education which can be easily downloaded. Application has section for Directorate of School education where links to all of the systems/portal of Directorate of school education Jammu are available, Ministry of Education Initiatives section of app is having link to all major initiatives launched by Ministry of Education GOI. It is a wonderful Source for all videos of Home Classes recorded by Expert Teachers as per syllabus of J&K Board of School Education. It has a repository of Home assignments and activities developed by an expert team as per Curriculum. It also has Digital Library where digital text books, reference books, videos etc are available for viewing and can be downloaded to use in offline mode. It also works very well in 2G network.
Howsoever this pandemic will affect our lives; it will cause a great leap in the educational pedagogies and will surely change the Educational system in purely advanced and fair manner. As now the educational institutions are re-opening after a long span the education system have to use Hybrid pedagogies. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
