How Has Online Learning Negatively Impacted Students?

As the schools, colleges and other educational institutions have started reopening for students after a two-year hiatus and returning to normal again, there is still panic among students and their parents. 

Online Schooling:

The fear of Covid and a sense of uncertainty and unpredictability is still prevalent among people. This shift from online learning to offline learning has a major impact on children. It took some time for the children as well as for their parents to adjust when everything was shifted to online mode.

But now, as everything has started returning to offline mode, parents are relieved that, finally, their kids will be able to experience their school life, but they are dealing with some issues as well. 

After spending two years sitting in front of a screen and attending their classes virtually without any actual interaction with their peers and teachers, children are facing social anxiety. 

Kids who started their initial days of school learning in front of a smart screen and have never been to school before are facing the major brunt of this transition as they have become reluctant to attend classes in physical mode and adapt themselves to this transition. 

Children's lack of sociability is due to their fear of Covid. Covid has left its impression on the young minds of kids and has left them with social anxiety, eating disorders, depression and addiction to computers and mobile screens.

Rural And Urban Divide:

During the Covid era, when everything shifted to online including the education
system, it introduced the educators and the students to a new world of virtual
learning. 

The pre-requisites for virtual learning are a laptop/computer or at least an
android phone and a stable internet connection. Now, this has created a major divide between students who could afford it and who cannot. 

In rural areas, people hardly get access to basic facilities, so for them, being able to afford a smart phone and internet connection was impossible. Even in urban areas, when almost everyone was dealing with financial crises, children coming from low-income families had to leave their education because of poverty and work as child laborers. 

According to the survey conducted by UNICEF, 1.6 billion children were affected by school closure, 617 million people failing to reach minimum proficiency in reading and mathematics, 2.2 billion or 2 in 3 children and young people aged 25 years or less don’t have internet access at home and only 6 percent of children and young people in low-income countries comparing to 87 percent in high-income countries.

The Aftermath:

Students and young people are facing the brunt of the aftermath of online learning. Don’t ignore the reluctance of a kid while going to school because that kid might be facing issues dealing with sudden transition and is unable to accept the change and adjust into it. 

Covid has created a divide in the education system between children coming from low-income and children coming from financially well-off families and many kids have lost precious years of learning and education, students coming from marginalised section of the society have become more vulnerable to losing the source of formal education because of lack of resources.

Written by: Harshita Bansal