INTRODUCTION:

The times that have never been dreamt off!! The pandemic times blow around the globe, leaving no space untouched. No one ever realized that such a microscopic virus could wreak such havoc in the entire world and take the lives of many people. All pertinent areas of our country have been affected social, economic, and health system arena¹. The education industry has not been spared out, and the impact of COVID-19 on student life was pertinent throughout and it’s visible. They certainly have left a very memorable impact in the field of education. By the end of March 2020, the pandemic was everywhere, forcing the government to implement a

lockdown and severe other measures of restrictions nationwide, resulting in the closure of most of the schools, colleges, and universities in India². According to UNICEF, the Covid-19 pandemic has battered education systems around the world, affecting close to 90 percent of the world's student population³. Nursing education scenario is also not that different, it is also going through hardships as in the era of Florence Nightingale in another dimension⁴.

Covid-19 and Indian Education:

Indian government has announced the lockdown and closure of educational institutions logical solution to enforce social distancing. The nationwide lockdown has had a tremendous impact on the country's education system, especially for students from rural areas. Since the Indian education system is dominated by classroom study, the present scenario has made the functioning of the educational institutions go very difficult. Over 1.5 million schools across India closed down due to the pandemic and a switch to large-scale digital education was not possible. Only 24 percent of households have access to the internet, according to a 2019 government survey. There is a significant shift in the way academicians deliver quality education through various online platforms. Online learning, distance, and continuing education have become a panacea for this unprecedented global pandemic, despite the challenges posed to both educators and learners. The closure of educational institutes across the country ensuring safety measures among students in such health disasters has made an incomparable impact on education⁵.

Indian Digital Status and Infrastructural Support:

On a serious note, we consider online teaching and learning as the only way out to counter with locked down educational institutions. We must consider where we stand digitally. Though the power and network infrastructure have improved leaps and bounds in the country's remote areas, there is still room for improvement. A significant proportion of the rural population falls short of the required internet bandwidth and knowledge to recognize devices and digital terminologies. Another major issue involves the absence of supporting infrastructural facilities such as a stable flow of electricity and the unavailability of high-speed internet. Teachers and students in villages are becoming more accepting of digital means of learning, but the infrastructural facilities there have not developed fully to become at par with what online learning requires. A steady flow of electricity and a lack of high-speed internet still pose major problems for the rural population⁶.

Rural India’s Educational Facts:

Rural schoolchildren have historically been disadvantaged in terms of educational quality and opportunities compared to their urban counterparts, as stressed by two recent large-scale survey reports. (The Annual State of Education Report 2020 and the Household Social Consumption on Education in India (2017–2018)).

Against the backdrop of a yawning rural-urban digital divide, state governments employed a mix of methods to implement distance learning for rural schoolchildren. The ASER 2020 survey highlights that these efforts have yielded disappointing results. During the reference week, approximately

· 20 percent of rural children had no textbooks at home

· 28 percent of students had received no educational assistance from family

· 29 percent of children had not engaged in any educational activity

· 66 percent of children had not received any instruction from their school

· Only 11 percent had attended live online classes

· 32 percent of children with Smartphone access had not received any materials.

In addition, access to devices and the internet does not guarantee the ability to use for educational purposes. As the key indicators of household social consumption on education in India show, only 20 percent of people in the 5–35 age groups had basic digital literacy, while only 8.5 percent of women knew how to use the internet.

Covid-19 Impacts on Teachers:

Life during the Covid-19 pandemic has been a drastic situation where it became a time of learning for all individuals, especially for teachers in the field. Overnight, teachers in both private and government schools were forced to completely reinvent themselves and their ways of teaching, to take classrooms to the homes of students via an impersonal two-dimensional screen. The abrupt shift to online learning mode exposes many questions: what's to be educated online? What’s the guide to make online content? Moreover, will one teach online with solely stripped-down information of online teaching tools? Neither college nor state education had all the answers. They started with the fundamentals for coaching academics for the new task at hand. Teaching faculty were rapidly educated to use technology and to develop online study material. The majority of the teachers had initial difficulties adapting to this new online medium of instruction but later on, they learned and reached a point competent enough to deal future⁷.

The WHO announced the Covid-19 virus pandemic worldwide. Schools went for shut down, for this reason, there arose a very new system named Work from Home. This concept was new to Indian teachers. The teacher will work anyplace from point this module of labor, from the lounge, bedroom, eating space, and so on. The teacher himself will live his comfort level at work. Significantly, once performing from home, the teacher will take full responsibility for completing the work that day⁸. One in all the benefits of work from home is that academics don't have to be compelled to follow workplace hours. One of the advantages of labor from house is that you just have not got to pay cash to obtain transportation or gas costs; academics may save time on travel. Moreover, by working from home, you can minimize the level of stress experienced. The existence of job satisfaction will certainly increase the productivity and loyalty of teachers⁹.

One of the negative impacts of work from home is that teachers can lose work-associated motivation. The reasons are quite diverse, for example, the working atmosphere is not as expected, and the house's atmosphere is not like an office, distracted by social media and other entertainment, and so on. When losing motivation to work, the teacher should rest for a while and not push you. If you force yourself, the mindsets for work will increasingly disappear¹⁰. The unexpected changes within the teaching pedagogy driven by Covid-19 have exposed some serious limitations and challenges. It has also conjointly inspired digital learning, providing all the way new experiences to the users. The changes have currently become new realities¹¹.

Shortage of Teachers:

Shortage of teachers or the poor teacher-to-student ratio in villages poses another challenge towards making learning entirely digital in such areas. To make complete digitization of education in rural areas, this ratio needs to be improved, and a large number of skilled and well-trained teachers are required so that every student receives complete attention even during an online class¹².

How Students Experienced Covid-19:

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the lives of scholars in several ways that, relying not solely on their level and course of study, however conjointly on the purpose they need to be reached in their programs. Those returning to the end of their education and moving on to a different, like those transitioning from college to tertiary education, or from tertiary education to employment, face explicit challenges. They’ll not be able to complete their college program and assessment within the traditional approach and, in several cases; they need been torn far from their group nearly long. At home, an absence of basic facilities, external distraction, and family interruption throughout teaching were major problems noticed¹³. Educational institution support barriers like buying advanced technologies; an absence of coaching; an absence of technical support, and an absence of clarity and direction were conjointly noticed¹⁴.

Considering Parents:

These are anxious times for students and parents. Uncertainties regarding once life can come back to “normal” compound the anxiety. These aspects of anxiety and related emotions are portrayed in certain studies¹⁵ conducted in India. Even as establishments create the changes needed to show in numerous ways, all ought to offer the best priority to soothing students and parents—with targeted communication. In this, effective counseling can be utilized to wipe out all possible agonizes of parents, especially¹⁶.

Constructive Impact on Education System:

Though COVID-19 has created many negative impacts on education, educational institutions of India have accepted the challenges¹⁷and trying their best to provide seamless support to the students. Indian education system got the opportunity for transformation from traditional system to a new era^{18, 19}. Literature reveals the same with recent studies published in this context²⁰. The following points may be considered as the positive impacts.

· Rise in online meetings: The pandemic has created a colossal rise in the teleconference, virtual conferences, webinars, and e-conferencing opportunities

· Increased digital literacy:- The pandemic situation induced people to learn and use digital technology and resulted in increasing digital literacy.

· Develop the use of soft copy of learning material:-In lock down situation, students were not able to collect the hard copies of study materials, and hence most of the students used soft copy materials for reference.

· Improvementincollaborativework:-Thereisanewopportunitywherecollaborativeteachingandlearning can take on new forms.

· Universal free knowledge procuring:-The worldwide conduction of free webinars, seminars allowed even common people to assess authentic knowledge and facts for no cost.

· Worldwide exposure:- Educators and learners are getting opportunities to interact with peers from around the world. Learners adapted to an international community.

· Better time management- Students can manage their time more efficiently in online education during pandemics.

· Demand for Open and Distance Learning:- During the pandemic situation, most of the students preferred Open and Distance Learning mode it encourages self-learning, providing opportunities to learn from diverse resources and customized learning as per their needs.

Detrimental Effects on Education System:

The Indian education system has suffered a lot due to the outbreak of COVID-19^{21, 22}. It has created many negative impacts on education and some of them are as pointed below:

· Educational uncertainty: Sudden closing of schools, instant transition of teaching-learning methods and extended duration of academic period and examinations.

· Unpreparedness of teachers and students: Teachers and students are unprepared for online education; they were not ready for this sudden transition from face to face learning to online learning.

· Parents’ role: In urban areas, some educated parents can guide but some may not have the adequate level of education needed to teach children in the house.

· Digital Divide among Students: Limited or no internet access and students capacity to afford computer, laptop or supporting mobile phones in their homes, may create a digital divide among students of the urban and rural areas.

· Inadequate Skills: The inadequacy of skills among the teachers of the rural areas to operate digital platforms is another key factor affecting the advancement of digital education. As the teachers lack the necessary training to use digital platforms, they are averse to adopting these educational methods.

· Loss of nutrition due to school closure: The closure of schools has serious implications on the daily nutrition of students as the mid-day meal schemes have temporarily been shut.

· Language Barrier: Almost 85% of the population living in India does not speak English. The lack of access to standardized content in regional languages causes a slow rate of further online course adoption.

· Gender Inequalities: The penetration of online learning amongst the female population in the rural parts of India is even more taxing. Just like most domains, the availability of internet and literacy in rural India is primarily available to men.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

This pandemic has revealed some of the major loopholes in the Indian education system^23,24,25.The closure of schools has made a severe impact on marginalized students. The Indian educational institutes realized the need to divide the courses into conventional teaching and online teaching, Online teaching will increase digital literacy among teachers and students which will increase their exposure and learning and making them more employable for the digital world-leading thereby contributing to social sustainability.

CONCLUSION:

COVID-19 has impacted immensely the education sector of India. Though it has created many challenges, various opportunities are also evolved. Indian government and different stakeholders of education have explored the possibility of Open and Distance learning by adopting different digital technologies to cope up with the present crisis of COVID-19.this crisis has been already treated as an eye-opener opportunity and Indian education system will plan accordingly to level various modes of teaching and learning. At the same time, measures to bring down inequality in digital status between urban and rural students community also is in progress.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST:

The authors have no conflicts of interest.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:

The authors would like to thank fellow colleagues for their kind support during the literature search and study throughout.

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Received on 03.09.2021 Modified on 29.04.2022

Int. J. Nur. Edu. and Research. 2023; 11(1):85-88.

DOI: 10.52711/2454-2660.2023.00019