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The Stolen Sixth Semester: Woes of a Final-Year Student

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Read the words of our Editor-in-Chief for one last time, before she graduates, as she complains about her stolen sixth semester.

I remember last year, around this time, I was preparing for the farewell ceremony for my seniors at DU Beat- my phone would blow up with some 250 random messages on WhatsApp, endless calls discussing the venue, theme, gifts, and what not. At that time, I didn’t actually understand what the final semester meant to my seniors because I was too engrossed thinking about how life and work would be without them being around. But I also had the settling feeling that I would know when time comes.

Cut to 2020, the last semester of my college life as an undergraduate student, sitting at home, writing this article, and thinking about where my last semester went. I think of the stuff I would have been doing with my college friends and my team at this wonderful organisation.

However, I have always believed ‘expect the unexpected’ and I think that this is the only thing that is keeping me sane in such uncertain times. As kids, most of us might have experienced an unsettling feeling when somebody would snatch out a lollipop from our mouth. This is exactly what happened to our final semester.

Having said this, I would not talk only about the sad situation we are in. As a graduating student, a host of memories flash in front of me right now- the day I got admitted to the University of Delhi(DU), the day I met my college best friend, and the day I joined this organisation.

The three years of my college life have been the most challenging, yet the best years of my life. From being a student coming out of the protected cocoon of school life to graduating college with confidence and an identity, this is what these three years have made me. As college students, we are stuck with assignments, internals, submissions, deadlines, placements, societies, and endless preoccupations.

The nationwide lockdown gave me enough time to introspect and surprisingly, all that mattered to me during this difficult time were the people. I realised that my college life was not only defined by a degree or my friends, but also the security guard of my college who would wish ‘Good morning bacchon’ every morning, the canteen staff who would talk about their families, and the housekeeping staff of the college who would smile and wish me luck before every exam.

I wish I could get to relive all this one last time because I didn’t know that the chai I had on 6th March in my college canteen was the last cup I would have with my college friends while Ravi bhaiya (college canteen staff) talked about his Holi plans. You know something impacts you a great deal when you are unable to write about it without being cheesy and clichéd. It’s a faux-pas I’m willing to indulge in for the sake of honesty.

As much as I have talked about the final year students, I would also like to talk about the juniors. They are also the ones who hope to give their seniors the most memorable days of their college life. The end semester is also a reminder that they have become older, and are now themselves seniors. It’s a nostalgic time for the third-year students but what we often forget is how overwhelming it is for the juniors as well.

Dear Delhi University, the batch of 2020 will miss their last fest season, internals, college parties, night stays, bunks, submissions, and the last lectures and yes, they will miss you too- a place which gave them friendships, lessons, and lots of memories.

Feature Image Source: Anoushka Sharma for DU Beat

Anoushka Sharma

[email protected]

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Editorial: Productivity and Pandemic: Decoding Online Learning

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In her last editorial of her tenure, our Print Editor talks about the socio-political and cultural connotations of expecting productivity in the midst of a Pandemic.

The University of Delhi (DU) is a revered dream for many, with its soaring cut- offs at the top ten colleges, promises of placements (mostly for commerce- based courses), and the affordability of its fee structure which allows undergraduate students to get a degree for as low as INR 50,000. Owing to the hullabaloo and cry over privatisation, one cannot say whether the last factor will sustain much further or not, but for now it is safe to estimate that this University is not home to selectively privileged youngsters.

Therefore, in unprecedented times like these with the Covid-19 Pandemic, DU’s 12th March Press Release, which insists upon maintaining the “continuity of the online teaching-learning process” is premised upon a sweeping generalization of social, economic, cultural, and political privilege.

With over 75 colleges, having an approximate total strength of nearly 1.5 lakh regular students, it is the infrastructure and physical access to the resources (libraries, notes, Internet, classes) available in respective DU colleges that is integral to the teaching-learning process for many students. The national lockdown due to the Pandemic has confined students, like all others, and many students have had to return to their respective homes.

The foundation of the belief that it is possible to continue an education process in the illusion of normalcy is the myth that the accessibility to resources is fair-play for all. Take for instance, the Kashmiri students in the University who have difficulty downloading byte-sized PDFs due to the restricted Internet access, and one would understand that video lectures on Zoom, Hangouts, and reading on JSTOR are synonymous with a utopian fancy in many students’ homes.

This is not to say that professors and peers in colleges are entirely ignorant of the aforementioned limitations, but there is significant pressure upon students nonetheless to go about internal assessments and coursework, as if it is an extended vacation.

To be fretting over grades and submission deadlines is not a privilege available to many whose mental health gets threatened in abusive or patriarchal households. Especially for women in India, many of whom choose DU because of its affordability and residential facilities that are liberating as compared to conservative, controlling families, being forced to stay in an inevitable lockdown can be a severe trigger for anxiety and, in some cases, trauma as well. There are urban and rural households alike which put a gendered burden of housework and chores like cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc. upon the women in the family – a factor that is not only troubling in terms of its sexist and patriarchal strain, but also because it practically limits how much time women can devote to an education they fought to attain in DU.

In times like these when Instagram influencers and many others have taken the approach of selling the ideals of ‘productivity, evolution of self, finding yourself’ among other things, it is integral for teachers and administrators of an educational institution like DU to realise the exploitative and harmful burden an undeveloped, inaccessible system of ‘online teaching-learning’ puts on young minds. This needs to be considered before generalising and declaring that students can afford to be studying more, finishing course work properly, and working hard, from the apparent comfort of their homes.

In this last editorial for this paper, I thus urge the students, teachers, and administrators of this vividly diverse University to acknowledge unequal privileges, and be kinder.

Anushree Joshi

[email protected]

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Coronavirus to Chinese Virus: A Racism Propaganda

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Medical officers, scientists, even the World Health Organisation (WHO) refers to the current pandemic as Coronavirus, but not some powerful world leaders, who have used this opportunity to stigmatize a particular disease. We still have not learnt anything from history, Have we?

 Amidst the world combatting the Coronavirus pandemic, the infamous part-time President, full-time “Twitterati” Donald Trump took to Twitter to address COVID-19 as “The Chinese Virus”. While in the same tweet he also said, that the United States of America would continue supporting the worst hit industries, like Airline and Travel Industry, where he completely ignored the dearth of funds the US healthcare system has been facing, the worst part still remains him nationalizing Coronavirus. 

 

Image Credits: Talk Radio Image Caption: The tweet where Trump addressed Coronavirus as Chinese Virus
Image Credits: Talk Radio
Image Caption: The tweet where Trump addressed Coronavirus as Chinese Virus

 

The US has been struggling to deal with the pandemic since Day 1, and Trump’s blame game has only jeopardized the situation more. Earlier, Trump blamed ex-President Barack Obama for the rise in number of cases in the States (Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?). Followed by Trump then blaming WHO, his own medical officers and ministers, and well now China. It is confirmed that the first case of Coronavirus was found in China, but does that make the virus Chinese? Trump’s own Secretary went on record to condemn Trump’s racist views as the virus is not propagated by any ethnicity or nationality, but Trump’s views do propagate Xenophobia.

While being asked to comment on his racist remarks of calling the virus Chinese, Trump refuted all accusations by saying, “The only reason I call the virus Chinese is because it originated from China. Whatever I said is not racist. Not racist at all.” Now, the question that persists is why the Coronavirus being called Chinese is extremely wrong?

There are two answers to that question, and both of which lie in power dynamics. Firstly, history has been the witness that whenever a disease or a pandemic has been stigmatized to particular ethnicity or nationality, it has led to catastrophic consequences. In the 14th Century, Jewish people were blamed for the outbreak of Black Death in Europe, and they were killed in great numbers. Again in 19th century Irish Catholic immigrants were blamed for spreading Cholera to the US, and thus were thrown in detention camps and faced mass killings. If you still don’t understand the relation of stigmatization of disease and its effect on people and national policy. In 1876, a group of Chinese people living in San Francisco became the scapegoat for smallpox outbreak which prompted the infamous Chinese Exclusion Act. 

While Trump may just be following the past narrative of naming diseases on the place of their origin, like Ebola, The Zika Virus, and more, what he doesn’t realize is that the world already has realized their mistake of stigmatizing diseases. Therefore, in 2015, WHO laid down the guidelines for naming a disease to avoid exactly what Trump is doing right now. Owing to the ideology that Trump preaches, the Asian-American, specially the Chinese-American community are facing tremendous violence, hate and daily racism. This phenomenon is also evident in India, where several harassment and racism cases have been reported against the North-Eastern citizens.

Secondly, calling the virus Chinese helps Trump to put the entire accountability of failure of the US health infrastructure on China. It also defers people from asking questions to Trump and his health policy, to hating China. Unfortunately, this has been proven true, with now the conspiracy debate around China using Coronavirus as a weapon being more surfaced than questions regarding the poor healthcare system, and how our politicians do not deem to invest in it but would spend all its budget on statues.

The Coronavirus sees no nationality, no ethnicity, no race, it just sees immediate health action plan. Whenever a disease has spread, shameful incidents of xenophobia and stigmatization have been written in history. Trump’s desperate efforts of playing the blame game, and nationalizing the suffrage of people, just shows the ideology of a capital-driven right-wing President.

 

Feature Image Credits: Bangalore Mirror

 

Chhavi Bahmba

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Lockdown: An Approach Fading Social Hierarchical Outlooks

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Amidst the complete erasure of street food, metro rides and our daily hustle to reach for classes on time, another thing which has not been completely vanished but has definitely got reduced, is people’s selective respectability, based on the social hierarchy.

The year 2020 with all its previous riots, social disorders and now COVID-19, revealed a bunch of realities. These realities apart from awakening some of our hidden talents have also pointed out towards some of the very serious flaws in our lifestyles as well as mindsets. One such major drawback which the lockdown period has made many of us figure is the judgment and treatment on the basis of one’s position in the social hierarchy.

India is known to have its roots in casteism and gender biasness. With the evolution in time and change in the structural management of the country, people have definitely changed but only in their public lives, their private lives are still governed by the primitive norms of discrimination. the aspect which has increased is not inclusion and liberality but hypocrisy and fineness. As time changed the sensitivity towards these issues did develop but yet due to the deep embedment of the exploitative policies in our minds we somewhere or the other tend to promote or act as per them.

One such manifestation is the consideration of the jobs of maids, house helpers, labourers and servants as trivial. The lockdown caused due to the advent of COVID-19 has made us realise their importance in our lives. At present when we see the dryness of our hands caused by washing utensils, or the scratches and cuts produced by mopping the floor, we intensely miss our ‘Shanta bais’. Their belongingness to a lower economic group than ours, or not sharing the same caste as us, doesn’t grant us the right to devalue their work and jobs. The quarantine season has made people realise the essentiality of their services thus, making them worthy of all the appreciation and respect.

Remember the times when the class division made you sniff your nose, when she entered to clean your room, or when you cribbed about switching off the fan when she swept the floor, now being in her shoes cleaning your house at your own has made people realise the worth of house helpers. By bringing the necessity to respect every person, irrespective of their caste, and every job irrespective of the salary given, under the limelight the quarantine period has contributed towards self-growth and development of a healthier prospective.

Another category of people who are often devalued is the housewives, or better called the homemakers. The variation between the two terms and the amount of effort which is needed to switch the former ‘house’ to the latter ‘home’ is made clear by the complete closure of outdoor activities. Seeing them chop vegetables with eyes full of brine, perceiving their pain of rejection, despite cooking in front the stove for hours amidst the summer heat, people have actually put their work under consideration and have begun supporting them in their every day, holiday and salary deprived jobs.

This newly woven fabric of Corona crisis, wherein people are together contributing to carrying out the household chores, or are remembering the work of their house labourers,
evokes a feeling of positivity and delight in between the negativity which encircles the world.

Feature Image Credits: Proeves

Kriti Gupta 

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SFI Demands Student Financial Support during COVID-19

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The Students’ Federation of India (SFI) released a statement about the need for financial support for students facing problems during the COVID-19 pandemic and released a set of demands regarding the same.

In a statement dated for 17th April 2020, SFI released a press comment regarding the triangular problems being faced by students during the Coronavirus lockdown and urged the government to provide financial support for the same.

The SFI condemned the BJP-led government’s abrupt announcement of the lockdown without any prior notification for the students to prepare for the situation. They commented that though necessary, the statement for a lockdown came upon every citizen “like a bomb”, and though the lockdown is set for 3rd May, it is likely to extend further.

“The wage labourers and unorganised sector workers who live from hand to mouth are the ones who are facing the worst repercussions of the lockdown. But the brunt of the lockdown is felt by all sections of the population, and by all industries. While a huge portion of the Indian population is facing dire livelihood issues, with the unemployment rate touching a 1/4th of the population, it is futile to expect families to support their children in schools, colleges and universities. many families can’t afford it. If this is left unchecked, it could lead to a great increase in drop-out rates.

Many students are stranded in universities and college in various cities across the country in hostels. They are stranded not only because we were all told to remain where we were and not travel, but also because the lockdown announcement gave no time for students (or anyone) to make preparatory decisions. The government had demanded the students to remain as they are, thereby we demand the government to provide financial assistance to these students. Moreover, students are from disparate economic backgrounds and given the present economic condition, to expect their families to financially support these students is irresponsible”, as stated by SFI’s Delhi State Committee.

SFI has, as a result, released a set of demands for the government to help the students being affected by this pandemic. These include:

  • Provision of a minimum amount of sum to students’ bank accounts
  • Disbursing Fellowships/Scholarships and Grants for Bachelors to PhD
  • Waiving college fee of two months
  • No hostel fee to be charged during the lockdown
  • Government to pay the rent for students staying on rent
  • Necessary steps to be taken to ensure that students’ basic needs are met.

Feature Image Credits: The Sentinel

Shreya Juyal

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Online Examinations- A Distant Prospect: UGC Expresses Grave Concerns

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Amidst digital divide and furthering inequality the University Grants Commission (UGC) has expressed its concerns with relation to online mode as alternative.

The University Grants Commission (UGC) hints towards the incapability of the country’s potential in resorting to online mode of examinations for all of its university students, as such a means appears to be a distant prospect in all likelihood.

A seven member committee headed by R.C. Kuhad, Vice Chancellor, Haryana University was formed by UGC in the previous week to dive into the matters of academic sessions and examinations of higher education. This committee has expressed it’s qualms over India’s lack of resources and infrastructure, when it comes to conducting online exams. The alternative of online exams came in the first place due to the postponement of final exams by the majority of Central Universities in wake of prevention from the widespread contamination of the COVID-19.

“We have received some serious concerns and various suggestions regarding holding exams, and we are working towards finding a solution,” said R.C. Kuhad in a statement made to The Print. The committee has supposedly submitted their report to the government on 13th April 2020. The theme of the discussion is more on further postponement of exams until future clarification than on online exam conduction.

An official told The Print while highlighting the lack of confidence in online exams as a prospect alternative, “Online examinations in universities look like a remote possibility, because we do not have a mechanism of conducting exams through online mode. Also, there are many students who are in rural areas, or areas that do not have proper access to facilities. How will they be able to write exams?” The official further added, “These are the questions that the committee is dealing with, and is tilting against the idea of having online exams. What they are looking at, instead, is suggesting that the universities conduct exams after June, once the schools and colleges are open. We also agree with the idea that universities are not capable of holding online examinations.

Statements retrieved from The Print where another UGC official expressed lack of confidence in infrastructure and questioned, “How will the universities make sure students are not cheating sitting at home? How will they ensure this facility is not misused? There are a lot of concerns that the stakeholders will have to look at.”

The Delhi University Teachers’ Association (DUTA) also reiterated similar concerns in a statement issued on Sunday saying, “Online education models cannot be a substitute to regular classroom teaching. It does not work in a country where internet connectivity and smartphones are limited to a class of students only.”

The Akhil Bharatiya Rashtriya Shaikshik Mahasangh (ABRSM), an RSS-affiliated teacher’s body also gave suggestions to the UGC regarding- prioritising the examinations of final semester students of undergraduate and postgraduate courses, and also avoiding of mass promotion of students to next semester without exams.

Agnitra Ghosh, an assistant professor at department of Journalism of Kamala Nehru College, expressed his concerns to DU Beat, saying,”The idea of online examination, we believe, is not at all viable and discriminatory, especially for students from deprived backgrounds. While we are taking online lectures, there are several issues like problems with connectivity, threats to privacy etc.”.  He further added, “As  soon as the university reopens, the examination should take place after completing the teaching process (internal assessment etc).”

“There are more than nine lakh students in Delhi University who are waiting to write their exams. Keeping their future in mind, we have begun preparations for conducting online exams. But we are still awaiting directions from UGC to go ahead with the plan,” Vinay Gupta, Dean of Examinations at DU, said as reported by The Print.

This move of proceeding with the online exams in Delhi University is opposed by teacher’s bodies like DUTA and student bodies like the KYS. A majority of Universities are waiting for the UGC to signal guidelines which as of date are not very convinced about the potential of the conduct of online methods.

Feature Image Credit: DU Beat Archives

Umaima Khanam

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Why I Look Forward to Cleaning my House

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… and so should you! If you are anything like me, then you would’ve also participated in household chores very reluctantly. Here’s why having a little more enthusiasm goes a long way.

Quarantine lock down has been a tough period for us all. Be it the feeling of being stuck inside or the little things that you took for granted and now miss, the lock down has been difficult for people in varying degrees. Like everyone else, I, too, yearn to go out and get my regular, busy life back.

However, as I’m stuck inside, getting the cleaning done in my house- be it jhadoo and pocha, doing the dishes and laundry, or sorting out stuff- has easily become one of my favourite things these days:

  1. Distracts You from the Fact that You Don’t, in fact, Have Your Life Together

It is a weird phase for all of us, where none of us are quite sure where we are going with our lives. Adding to that, this anxiety comes with the knowledge of not doing anything productive like you thought you were supposed to be doing. In times like these, life gets a little bit overwhelming and you might not know where to start.

But, fret not! Little tasks like sweeping the house or doing the dishes not only distract you from the fact that you don’t have it together (nor do you particularly need to, in these times) but also helps establish a routine to make you feel like you’re actually doing something productive and helpful for once. What’s more! You can do so while jamming to your favourite artists and getting groovy (which personally, does wonders to uplift my mood). And if you’re feeling a little educational, you can even do so while listening to your favourite podcasts.

  1. Gets You Some Exercise

When was the last time you actually got some exercise? If you are anything like me, it would’ve been when you were busy with your regular life. And like me, the lack of exercise would’ve now been hurting both your mental and physical health, but you wouldn’t have found the motivation to follow through with the exercise.

Guess what gives you an easy outlet to get your body moving? Doing Jhadoo and Pocha! It gets your muscles moving, stretches and bends our body, and builds up your endurance- all while getting some cleaning done. Talk about killing two birds with one stone.

Put on some peppy tunes to get you pumped up. And once you feel accomplished enough and get those endorphins racing, you could even move on to actually working out at home!

  1. Makes Your Parents Happy

If you don’t want to do it for yourself, do it for your parents.

Like all parents, mine nagged me all the time for not helping out enough- after which I did, but not without whining the whole time. Until I realized, if I do the task with a little more gusto, I not only finish the task very easily and definitely faster but also see my parents happy with me- which works in my favour a lot!

Helping your parents out with domestic work means they are happy with you, which in turn, means you are happy because you can now do what you want to without their piercing glare. Parents walk by as you skip the intro of that show for the 11th time? Guess what, you don’t have to see your parents eye you judgmentally and anticipate being told off because you’ve been a good kid who helped them out!

  1. Actually Cleans the House !?

Honestly, if nothing else motivates you, just do it for the sake of cleanliness.

You get to live in a clean house and not feel disgusting. As your house thrives, so does a little bit of you. It’s like showering and soaking in a bathtub, but for the house. Imagine not having crumbs and dust stick to your feet as you walk barefoot in the house on a hot summer day! or sleeping in sheets that look crisp and smell fresh instead of your crumpled, smelly one that’s long overdue a change!

Moreover, it gets you to finally adult and be prepared for the time when you move out of your nest!

My new favourite thing this quarantine is to clean my house and do the dishes because honestly, there’s no reason not to. Hopefully, now, it would be yours too!

Satviki Sanjay

[email protected]

 

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Eco Fascism, Environmentalism, and Coronavirus

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Read on to find the problematic association between eco-fascism and Coronavirus. 

  • The difference between environmentalism and eco fascism.

Environmentalism in its simplest sense is a political and ethical movement which seeks to protect, preserve, and improve the environment by putting a stop to harmful human activities. Eco fascism marries the ideas of environmentalism with racism and supremacy and propounds the sacrifice of humans and their interests for nature.

  • Eco fascism and racism

Eco Fascism tends to align itself with a Neo Malthusian thought process that the earth is simply falling apart because there are too many people, it does not question the entrenched factors behind environmental issues. Both the Christ church and El Paso shooters have referred to themselves as eco fascists. Though, currently on the fringe, Eco fascism can be used as an excuse to target racial, ethnic, and gender minorities in the name of the environment.

  • Linking Eco fascism to the current pandemic

The Coronavirus Pandemic has led to lockdowns and curfews throughout the world. The lack of human activity has led to substantial drops in pollution levels. Now, while this does pose some serious questions on the consumerist and materialist lifestyle we follow, Eco fascists have ignored all these questions and come up with a simple, yet ultimately flawed thesis. Which is highlighted by a lot of posts about how humans are the virus and how the pandemic was needed to reduce human population, basically the celebration of a pandemic.

  • The flaws and privileges behind “Humans are the virus.”

Ignoring the deeper questions presented by the pandemic and simply celebrating it has many flaws. It comes from a point of privilege as those propagating have access to healthcare and are at relatively lower risk and ironically lead consumer heavy lifestyles, while those in underdeveloped countries and from lower sections of society will end up suffering as always. So, before sharing content and tweets, spare a thought to how this movement carries echoes of exterminating/reducing what supremacists see as “inferior(minorities)” populations and try to judge what you share accordingly.

Feature Image Credits: The New Republic

Prabhanu Kumar Das

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News of Promotion without Exams False, Clarifies DU

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Delhi University authorities confirmed that there has been no discussion regarding the promotion of first- year and second-year students without conducting examinations. All news regarding this has been falsified.

With the University of Delhi (DU) being closed, University administration has postponed their semester-end examinations in lieu of the Coronavirus induced national lockdown.

Meanwhile numerous have reports surfaced among the media, and student circles that, in a meeting of University officials with Vice Chancellor Yogesh Tyagi, proposals regarding promotion of first and  second year students without semester-end examinations had been discussed. But contradicting these claims, Professor Vinay Gupta, Dean Of Examinations, told The Quint, “No such proposal has been sent to the Vice Chancellor and these reports do not carry any substance.” He confirmed that the University definitely has plans to conduct examinations, though not in the immediate future.

He mulled that if needed, the University would consider shifting examinations online. “We see online examinations as the only way to conduct examinations, especially in times when students should not leave their houses. But the final decision can only be taken after committees report”, Professor Gupta said, referring to the committees formed by the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the Ministry Of Human Resource Development (MHRD) to analyse various possible scenarios.

Expressing disappointment at the University’s adamant stance on conduction of examinations, an undergraduate student, who did not wish to be named, said, “Many universities across the country have cancelled their semester examinations. Under such trying circumstances, it is best that we give foremost preference to our health and life before considering our educational conveniences. This is a once-in-a-lifetime situation.”

“As of now I have not been intimated by my superiors regarding the cancellation of examinations. Not holding examinations would mean giving the same Semester Cumulative Grade Point Average to each student, which is unfair in my opinion. Examinations should take place, whether after a month, or after a year”, said an Assistant Professor of Economics, on the conditions of anonymity.

Thus in the current situation, cancellation of examinations for any course or year is not in the picture. A definitive update shall only be announced after the committees give their recommendations.

Feature Image Credits: DU Beat Archives

Araba Kongbam

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Online Lectures: Boon Or Bane?

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Shutting down of educational institutions in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic has necessitated the need for teachers to shift their lectures to the web.

“XYZ is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting” sliding into my mail whenever my professors wish to take a lecture is a notification that never fails to abruptly remind me of how much the world has changed and that I have been under quarantine, along with the whole country, for the past three weeks, something which I tend to forget from time to time having become so accustomed to it already, though in my defence, there is nothing very memorable about the quarantine or the “entity” that made it necessary, the coronavirus pandemic.

Infecting more than a million people across the world, and taking the lives of more than a hundred thousand, the coronavirus pandemic can be considered one of the most devastating and unfortunate events in human history. With lockdowns being announced, almost all corporate offices, private and public sector companies and educational institutions have been forced to pull down their shutters. 

Consequently, most official enterprises, be it meetings or seminars, have moved to online platforms, with teleconferencing applications like Skype and Zoom experiencing a swarm of new users. These new “migrants” also include university professors and school teachers, along with their students. 

While the idea of online teaching is not new, with many online educational platforms having been in existence for the past few years, the manner and the magnitude at which colleges and schools have unanimously adopted it recently is unprecedented. There are mainly two modes of transmission – sharing pre-recorded videos of the teacher with students or the teacher video-conferencing simultaneously with every student. The latter tends to get preferred over the former as it allows students to put forth their doubts there and then, along with the fact that the teacher can change the direction of teaching according to the prevailing line of thought going around his/her class.

Online teaching has its benefits. Since it allows the teacher and the student to be a part of the classroom from the comfort of their homes, it cuts the time and financial costs of house-to-school or house-to-college commute, as well as allowing sick students to attend their classes, which they otherwise wouldn’t have. “I was bedridden due to a minor surgery for a few days last week but I still didn’t miss any teaching as all my classes were being held online”, said a University Of Delhi student, on the condition of anonymity.

Commuting to one’s college or school everyday and staying there for 5-6 hours undoubtedly causes fatigue which hinders one’s attention during offline lectures, something which doesn’t happen in the case of online ones. 

“Zoom goes from conferencing app to the pandemic’s social network”, reads the headline of an article by Drake Bennett in the Bloomberg Business Week. The application is one of the biggest gainers of the sudden surge in online lectures, with downloads experiencing a boom from a mere 10 million to a whopping 200 million across devices. Being easy to operate and handle, it has even been patronized by the older not-so-tech-savvy generation of university professors.

But the problems of online lectures also start with Zoom. It has come under immense scrutiny for its relatively lax security systems, especially the absence of end-to-end encryption, which makes it prey to possible data theft. Since public zoom meetings can be accessed by merely opening the link for it, there have been numerous cases where hackers and mischief-mongers have hijacked meetings and lectures armed with offensive slogans, inappropriate images, abusive texts and racial slurs. “Zoombombing”, as this act is commonly known as, has forced many companies like Google and SpaceX to ban the usage of the application in its offices. Schools in Singapore and Taiwan have followed suit.

In fact, the application has been accused of spying on and recording personal user data, as well as tinkering with the in-built software of computers. Brian Feldman, in an article for the New York Magazine rubbished these claims and claimed that the problems were “sloppy rather than malicious”, though he sharply criticized the application, writing “..a billion dollar company seems to be held together with a duct tape and string.” Zoom’s CEO, Eric Yuan apologized for the glitches and attributed them to the company not having been prepared for such an enormous boom in its user base while also assuring implementation of stronger security measures in the coming weeks.

Besides Zoom’s complications, the most prominent drawback of an online lecture is the shunting out of students without internet access or electronic device access, especially in India where a large chunk of students come from rural backgrounds or poor families. This goes against the principles of government institutions which were established to provide equal education to all. 

Additionally, in case of some components of subjects composed of a considerable amount of quantitative analysis or those containing figures and graphs, say Economics or Physics, it gets a tad difficult to comprehensively  expound the learning matter through mere audio explanation or by writing on a notebook. Though this problem can be solved by the use of slideshow presentations. Ethically, there also tends to a lack of seriousness in the case of an online class when compared to an offline one since there is an absence of a disciplined classroom atmosphere. “I often end up browsing through my phone or laptop during lectures, or sometimes even worse, I turn off my video and leave to do something else.”, said a student of Daulat Ram College, on the condition of anonymity.

Nevertheless, the world was not prepared for these recent unfortunate developments, and adult office-goers and college students alike, and the Zoom application, despite its complications, have done a commendable job in keeping the show running partially. And with doctors and nurses across the world volunteering for the treatment of infected patients, medical experts and scientists working day and night for a cure or a vaccine, governments introducing strict movement restrictions and responsible citizens complying to these restrictions, one can hope that by the end of this year, professors and their students shall return to their classrooms.

 

 

Featured Image Credits : Anukriti Mudgil for DU Beat

Araba Kongbam

[email protected]

 

 

 

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