Daily Times

The people working in the education sector are always considered wise in dealing with issues of daily life. The higher education sector is further considered as a solution provider to the problems being faced by society. Right from the day one, when the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic, the Higher Education Commission (HEC) initiated dialogue with all stakeholders for safeguarding the lives of the students, faculty members, and staff at universities. The HEC is following government’s decisions and, in the current situation, mobilized universities to develop strategies for engaging students through online education. Different committees were formed to develop guidelines for providing quality online education.

Faculty members must understand that some of the students may not have proper computers or seating arrangements at home

As per the HEC ordinance, it is the responsibility of the organization to create an enabling environment for higher education institutions to utilize their resources for dealing with the current crisis. Most of the universities responded to the current crisis in a professional manner. They adopted the HEC guidelines circulated on April 17, 2020, they not only launched Learning Management System (LMS) but also developed Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), conducting training for faculty members and staff for effective online education. In these testing times, the role of university administration and faculty members are appreciable. Although our social behavior remained of resistive most of the time, collective decision making has resulted in having ownership of the stakeholders.

Faculty members started online classes with a variety of tools, and students have also joined this new mode of learning. Although, many areas need to be improved, as mentioned in guidelines issued by the HEC. Faculty members have started placing their video lectures on different platforms, and students are adopting this virtual learning environment. It shows that our institutions, faculty members, and students are ready to experiment with new initiatives if proper strategy is developed in consultation with stakeholders, and proper training is also offered to those who are not well versant in the use of the ICT.

The online classes started with 40 universities with LMS and 70 universities without LMS, but within a month, most of these now have open source LMS. It is all possible due to the willingness of the University Administration and the positive approach of faculty members. The role of higher education departments remained supportive during this time. Universities all over the world are facing many challenges, and our universities are also facing the same challenges. These are related to assessment, examination, quality of the content, quality of the instruction, enabling a virtual environment for faculty members, and students.

The HEC technical support committee provided not only technical support but also developed a virtual platform for sharing good practices among different stakeholders. It created a competitive environment for the Universities, and result in a peer pressure developing along with social pressure for adopting a new model of teaching and learning. This competition created a trickled down effect, and faculty members and students were also compelled to follow. The next step in this regard will be to assess these programs positively, and improvements may be introduced in terms of content, instructional design, and assessment.

Now, external assessment of these programs may be carried out through experts from the same type of Universities, which will again develop social and professional pressure on them for further aligning their teaching activities to defined standards. There is a need to have trust in faculty members in terms of taking student attendance, assessment, and other class-related activities. There is also significant responsibility on the shoulders of the faculty members to teach professionally. Their patience, consistency in dealing with students will result in motivate them to be good learners.

Faculty members must understand that some of the students may not have proper computers or seating arrangements at home. They must keep all such considerations in mind, and instructional design should be fit for all learners. Therefore, faculty members may engage students in discussing such matters on an individual basis. The sole purpose of this exercise should be to understand the difficulties they are facing in online education and how these can be removed for their active participation.

Those who are criticizing the current phenomenon may be given a chance to share their observations, and corrective measures are required to be in place. It is not possible to deliver and satisfy all students in online education. The same is true for even face to face or traditional modes of teaching-learning, but consistent efforts by the Institutions, individuals, will yield better results. As far as student learning is concerned, like satisfaction in traditional mode also varies, and the same is for online. We need to change teaching practices along with the world, which is also passing through these crises.

The countries which are mostly relying on education as a service industry are experimenting online mode during these days. It is possible that till the availability of vaccine for COVID-19, most of the countries will shift to complete online mode. As far as practical in Laboratories are considered, most of the engineering and natural sciences discipline are using simulations for such purposes. Let us follow these new ways of teaching, learning, and examination. We need a different type of skills to survive in this new world where brick and mortar are going to be less critical and focus will be on developing information communication technology infrastructure.

The author is deputy director at Higher Education Commission, Islamabad. He can be reached at muneermirjat@gmail.com