The COVID-19 inspired online teaching is a completely new playing field for most of the universities in Pakistan barring few virtual universities and some top tier universities, which enjoy a competitive advantage in this mode of delivery (there may be some others that I am not aware of).
The online teaching currently being employed by most is, in fact, quite different than a traditional online program. It rather appears to be a modified version, as such referring to it as online teaching created confusion and perhaps the reason for reluctance in its acceptance and implementation by some teachers and students. I will endeavour to rename this Emergency Teaching as a Make Shift Teaching Mode (MSTM) due to an unexpected situation and something that rather resembles more like a remote teaching mode. The drawbacks as such stem from the selection and design of this mode.
We need to develop our online education (a new mode) so that it is not regarded as a make-shift arrangement in crises nor considered inferior to classroom teaching
Most of our universities employ a decentralised structure as such academic leadership at the school levels within these universities was not integrated with the central management for online delivery. Besides the leadership, the teaching faculty lacked the competencies and skills required for this mode of teaching. They were thrown and forced in this unexpected situation to deliver something, which most had never tasted before. Prior to COVID-19, Learning Management Systems (LMS) and Blackboard were already made available to the teachers in almost every university, but neither the students nor the teachers really utilised these technologies to their very best. These technologies were restricted to the use of uploading lecture PowerPoint and some teaching material. The decision to immediately switch from Face-to-face (f2f) to MSTM was assumingly considered as a simple mode, which could be easily adopted by everyone with some basic training on the use of technologies like Zoom, Blackboard Collaborate and Skype etc. On a positive note, the attendance percentage was even better than f2f; indicating an urge by our students to go for learning.
As indicated by National Association of Scholars, online education, in contrast to f2f, is essentially a form of service, which students as customers want to buy in return for an economic benefit (jobs). Unfortunately, with the economic situation in Pakistan, this, too, is only a dream for the most. With the commercialisation of our higher education, universities and their professors are aiming to be efficient in their delivery of such online courses (though temporarily due to COVID-19) so as to satisfy their customers. However, this notion has been negated by Jason Fertig who opined that “when professors strive for efficiency, learning decreases.”
The Return on Investment from online courses is more and according to Caroline Hoxby, “though it provides a good growth of income, but not enough to make up for the cost of the education or even, in most cases, the cost to the individual student.”
In the context of countries like Pakistan, one would need to ask a question “will an online degree provide jobs to the graduates?”
The answer is a yes for some courses like Social Sciences, Business, Arts etc., but a no for the majority of the courses including Engineering, Aviation, Biotechnology, Medicine etc. Online courses have not yet been absorbed as an alternate education by most of the families (student’s parents) and employers in Pakistan especially due to the poor job market, it will take quite some time when it happens.
Most educators and academics support the framework that addresses three major issues to explore to make a success model online: issues related to online learners, lecturers and content development. However, to make it successful in the presence of cost burdens, there is a dire need for funding support from the Higher Education Authority. Applying this framework to Pakistan, we will note that all these issues have been the major causes of probable failure of the MSTM during this crisis situation. Though residing in Australia, I have been continuously reading articles published in the Pakistan media by both academics and non-academics and was surprised to note that almost all these address the process side of the issue and either missed or ignored the content side (my apologies if I missed any relevant article). I thought to input my views in this respect. While the decision was made to switch to online, the lecturers were expected to transfer their face-to-face teaching to suit the online model rather than using the model to design an online teaching program. Switching from f2f to online teaching is a complex process if the quality is the main objective. The lack of skills and training in converting f2f material to online poses a challenge to most lecturers. Investing efforts in training the teachers to operate or master the online teaching tool might not achieve the desired outcomes alone. It is not just a matter of uploading the f2f material on LMS and employing a video conferencing technology to talk out the material to students; rather it requires an intelligent approach to select the appropriate media and to ensure the Course Outcomes are achieved. To be able to meet the expectations of students, instead of transferring the already prepared materials to online using technology as an add-on tool, it is recommended to re-design the entire course embedding multimedia and interactive learning tools within the course content. Selection and proper use of assessments (both formative and summative) will enhance learning. Sadly, lecturers have not been trained in this redesign process subsequently resulting in poor delivery of a quality course otherwise.
The COVID-19 has undoubtedly caused a disruption in our education system. The Universities and the Higher Education Departments have tried their best to provide an alternative system (online) to which both the teachers and students were not used to, as such a natural resistance. It is not sure how long will this situation last. Even if we get over this, unexpected situations are bound to arise in the future and if we are not prepared we will be caught in the same problem we are in now. We need to develop our online education (a new mode) so that it is not regarded as a make-shift arrangement in crises nor considered inferior to classroom teaching. An integrated (blended) solution which embeds Classroom teaching, LMS and Online and which provides confidentiality in terms of storage will be ideal. In my opinion, rather relying on technologies imported from abroad, efforts should be expended in developing such systems locally so that we can economize on cost and always look for solutions inwards during crisis situations. Proper funding from National Policymakers is essential to remain prepared for any such eventuality so as to cause minimum disruption to learning and being accepted by the students and their families.
The writer is Institute of Aviation Studies, UMT, Lahore
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