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| Raju Yonjan |
Learning is to perceive and gain something new from someone or from his or her own experience in the course of time. In addition, learning only does not mean to learn; it should carry the essence of change in the learners' lifestyles later in the future. Different teaching methods have been used in the teaching process for good outcomes and lift up the standard of students in Nepal. However, the outcome and standardness of students seem not as per the expectation.
CoronaVirus (COVID 19) was seen in December last year in China and it started to spread firstly, Thailand, Taiwan, Similarly, it is creating a catastrophe in Europe, America recently. Now, 210 countries are confronting the fatal Pandemic COVID 19. At the present, almost all countries both developed and under developed countries are practicing lockdown as their first treatment like China did. Likewise, Nepal is also following the same from the last 46 days in order to manipulate sprinkling of COVID 19. At the moment, Nepalese are in the house endorsing government for the lockdown; the citizens have comprehended the adverse effect of this pandemic. Meanwhile, many educationists, scholars and IT experts have commenced to reckon and germinate alternative ways and a procedure for initiating the education system from another paradigm. Nepal consists of around 35000 Schools, 15000 colleges and 11 universities which are entirely closed due to the terror of COVID 19. The students who were about to attend SEE have been mostly affected. Not only the SEE students but also, the board exams of different levels in Universities have also been stopped. Plus, students of primary are also badly affected by this fatal pandemic who have not gone to school yet, since the new session started.
In fact, Pandemic comes and goes; it is a natural process. But we are human beings who should always be ready to penetrate the challenges that are yielded by such pandemic. To be honest, every problem creates an opportunity and the same opportunity may not be offered by the next circumstance. That might appeal to another offer which could be unendurable in comparison to our level. This time, in the context of Nepal, voices of using and implementing technology based learning in Education have been raised from many eminent IT experts and the raised voices have travelled to the top point at the moment.
They say that it is the right time to commence the classes with the help of Technology. They further added that there are challenges and barriers to go into implementation, but let's start whatever comes we will settle down by there.
Indeed, it is a tough deed to implement in a country like ours, but it is also sure that once it is totally implemented in our country. Afterwards, there may not be such a country that will take as benefit as we take in the teaching process as the land structure of our country Nepal is geographically diverse. Many remote areas where transportation facilitates are yet to reach. There are many schools in which teachers could not reach. Many children who are out of school due to the distance between school and their house could be benefited by.
There is nothing which is not possible; we just have to work hard to get ahead. Each level of government has to think about newness in the education system. We can even learn and convoke ideas of education management from the countries having the world’s best education and its system: Finland, Switzerland, and Singapour and many education systems of advanced countries. These countries have even exceeded the United States of America, United Kingdom, Australia. In Singapur, every student has a device on the desk and all connect to the special system run by School. The Programme for International Student Assessment is a kind of assessment of the education system of countries which was last conducted in 2015 assured that Singapore has a very systematic and scientifically arranged education system that has topped in three subjects Mathematics, Reading and Science. In comparison, Australia came out significantly lower 25th, 16th and 14th in Mathematics, Reading and Science respectively. The thing behind such a tremendous education system is because of the principal, ‘Lift the bottom but not cap the top’ and embedded technology based learning. Moreover, it is said that the Singapore government allocates the second highest budget in Education. In contrast, we hardly soak up to the foundation of the students who study at primary level. If I need to talk about the present plight of the education system in Nepal, it is mostly a theoretical basis that fades away as soon as a student passes a certain degree. It seems as if we are following the same classical theory in our education system instead of getting along with the new learning theories, teaching approaches, most importantly ICT integrated pedagogy. Many research shows that maximum teachers do not have Technological Knowledge (TK) and do not give priority to Computer based learning (CAL) in Nepal. I can utter this because we neither have Physical, infrastructure nor ease of ICT in all around Nepal. So, a lecture method which is teacher centred is a common method among the teachers in the Nepalese context. Similarly, Finland, Switzerland have a very advanced and technically arranged education system. It is said that Teachers in Switzerland are highly paid more than teachers across the globe. On the contrary, our government only knows to give solacement to people rather than doing deeds. Education is not the first priority in our Country. The appropriation of budget in the Education sector was just 10.68 percent in the fiscal year 2019-20 which means not even one third of the total budget.
In conclusion, pandemic COVID 19 has provided us a golden opportunity to shift our present education system into another education paradigm. For this, the government has to coordinate with technology based organizations, IT experts and entire stakeholders. Government has to invest in education as the Singapore government does.
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