I never knew students can be this ill-mannered,” said Aleem Khan a visiting teachers at several universities. He has been a victim of students misbehaving with teachers in the online teaching system.
Khan who teaches at three different universities accepted the changed from white board and power point presentation teaching methods to internet dependent teaching facilities. “It was difficult at first to adopt a totally different way of teaching with bad internet and electricity facilities in the country,” he said while sharing it was difficult for him to change the domain in a blink of an eye.
“I never knew that students can be cruel enough to share links of the zoom class with their friends and cousins who are not a part of my class but can join via links,” he shared how he learnt after an incident which changed his perception about the students for long.
One day when he was taking his online class few new participants joined the class with different funny names, at first they started making funny noises, passing comments on female students, doing abusive messages in chats and the worst was to abuse and use vulgar language towards the teacher himself.
Aleem in the scenario is not alone but there are millions of teachers who are facing the same or even worse conditions, since the Coronavirus pandemic hit Pakistan on February 27. As soon as the universities decided and converted their education system on online classes on Zoom app, majority of the elderly teachers who were not tech savvy and have zero knowledge of online system were gone dependent on either their children to help them out or on students who were good enough to help them learn the new dynamics. In this there were majority of students who misuse this and manhandled the teachers.
Various videos were posted on You tube and Facebook of teachers recorded by students where they were guiding them wrong on live video and also mocking them for not knowing basics of using zoom app.
Not just this has effected teachers but it has also caused hurdles for students who are serious about their education loss.
“Our classes were suspended for a week when one of our classmate shared the link of class with his friend and that friend joined the class and misbehaved with the teacher so bad that our teacher left the class and complaint to the chairperson,” said Fardeen Saleem, a second year student at a state university.
Further adding to her nightmare she told that, students faced the consequences on this ho were not at fault even. “We were asked to find that guy who shared the link or else our classes won’t resume,” she added.
With educational institutes closed in Sindh since February 28 and all over the country since March 13, the loss of educational activities is par count but still the organizations are not leaving any unturned stone to ease out the problems of the students.
The situation has worsen with time, even exams of many universities were conducted online and even that was a bigger issue when videos of students sitting together in a room and attending exam just like a combine study set up where there is terrific amount of cheating.
We as a nation complains about the corruption of politicians and even abuse service providers but our youth has gone to limits and need a whole learning to act humanely. Our country will never prosper if the youth keeps cheating and misbehaving even with the most respected profession.
Yusra Salim is a freelance journalist, reporter by birth and house-wife by choice. She is currently completing her MS in Journalism. Love to capture scenic views, traveller and a true Karachiite.