Halt in academic activity hits teachers as well
Dr Sheikh Arshid Ahmad
Education is a comprehensive resource that is widely revolutionizing the society morally, socially and economically. It is used for improvement of social concepts, human values, connects the people from all walks of life and has a vital role in social reformation. It teaches us about the human nature and its role in inculcating all social norms to form a solid foundation of society without any discrimination in caste, creed, color and religion.
Education enables the individual of the society in knowing their rights and duties towards society and families. Education has become mandatory to an every individual in all learning abilities; it opens vision and outlook of a person to see the world. It develops the capabilities to fight against the injustice, violence, corruption and many other social evils of the society. Without education a man is faltered and faded up of being a real human and social being. It helps us to learn all aspects of society and in present scenario a man is being treated inhumanely and immoralized without education. It shows the connectivity and interdependence among the different individuals of the society.
In Kashmir unfortunately there has been a huge impact on the learning processes as all educational institutions have been closed for a long period of time due to incessant unrest and lockdowns. It has not only brought up a huge loss on education system but also procure bad consequences on economic and social values. It refers to general loss of knowledge, skills, loss of momentum in academic progress, commonly created huge and extended gaps or discontinuities in education.
Due to continuous closure of all educational institutions the academic schedules of millions of students have been thrown out of gear and their teaching-class room touch remain completely disrupted.
Amid incessant lockdowns education has faced more brunt than any other sector of the society. When students face a huge break from the learning process this has resulted to be more panic and devastating for them. With this Interruption in formal education, students lose their thorough concentration on studies and are not able to remain in touch with the studies even at home. Thus students experience a significant loss in their formal education. In these cases, students are not able to repeat previous chapters, complete additional coursework, or accelerate their learning progress. Due to these unpredictable breaks ups students are surrounded by fear, trauma and lack of stimulating activity.
Another common loss in education is continuous gag on the internet during unrest due to insurgency in Kashmir which keep students away from all kinds of Google information and online classes. Importantly it has badly affected the research of M.phil and PhD scholars as they are not able to search the current and fresh knowledge. They remain unaware about the current affairs and are not able to use these resources for additional learning opportunities.
The school is often considered to be a potential source of learning process. Students remain in touch with the teachers in live classes and complete their common course-credit requirements easily and efficiently that allow students to observe their progress at different grades. In schools they pursue some other strategies including projects, practical works and other multifaceted assignments that serve as culminating academic and intellect experience that has also remained out of touch during lockdowns.
Since four or five years it has been observed that lower-quality teaching , slower academic progress, much more loss in learning processes in relation to students and meek in student’s expectations to be at a specific stage in their education. Now the schools may have to adopt a variety of strategies intended to mitigate the teaching-learning loss that occurs due to unusual lockdowns and unrests.
The schools have now planned to mitigate the loss by starting the community classes with proper, all SOP gears along with sufficient physical distance so that at least they can recover some damage but unfortunately the administration of Kashmir have used the police force to disperse and halt all these community classes.
This has jabbed the educational system bitterly. Wherever they have received any complaint about the teacher citing concerns with poor ventilation and insufficient physical distancing among students they disgrace and dishonour him on social networking sites.
Teachers have been in a constant state of unease since the schools have been closed in March. They were called upon to start teaching through on-line mode but that seems insufficient for students.
Teachers in community classes tried hard to juggle new safety protocols, and oversee children’s health practices such as hand-washing and proper physical distance, still teachers felt dissatisfied about the teaching challenges in pandemic as administrators totally restricted the teaching-learning process in community classes.
During these times of pandemic the administration and school authorities have to find out solid strategies so that at least students may be protected from complete deviation and devastation of formal education.
(The author is a scholar and hails from Kuchmulla Tral)
