Sanjoy Kumar Chanda :
The situation of Covid-19 is gradually getting worse in Bangladesh and the campus-based education plan is now deemed inappropriate. People from every corner are being infected by the coronavirus and a portion of them is passing away every day. All universities in Bangladesh are closed at the onset of the coronavirus outbreak to avoid large-scale infections. However, no formal guidelines were given to public university students to continue their studies. Now the question is, will millions and millions of students only pass the sedentary life during the pandemic? Of course, this shouldn’t be the demand. We live in a global village and we must survive in the competition. If we don’t run our universities in the same way developed countries doing now, we will fall behind. This is the high time therefore to think of the alternative mode of study without delay.
What is being practiced in developed countries in the midst of the pandemic? I do not think it is wrong or immoral to observe and apply the activities of successful nations. An alternative method of study is online-based learning that is already globally recognised. Since the outbreak of the pandemic, most of the universities in the developed world have been conducting nonlaboratory studies through webinars – a group meetings conducted over the internet. The laboratory-based work has been completely shut down somewhere, and in a few institutions, it is only partially active for postgraduate students on a rota basis. The PhD defence is being organised by the Zoom /Skype. The University of Cambridge has already announced that they will continue their online lectures instead of face-to-face during the next academic year due to the coronavirus (BBC, 19th May 2020).
Albeit online-based education is not an unknown phenomenon in developed countries, this system is not popular in Bangladesh yet. Now we observe that the nation is divided between pro-online and no online. It’s not a bad thing to get involved in a debate, but what we can learn from developed countries is that they keep their universities open through online systems while restricting students’ campus access. The major challenges for Bangladeshi students may be the lack of personal laptops/tabs and stable internet and consequently, pupil may feel uncomfortable and frightened. However, these challenges don’t apply to all students; only a portion of them are not currently ready to receive education by the webinar. A recent survey by the UGC found that 86.62% of university students in Bangladesh have access to smartphones (The Daily Prothom Alo, 6th June 2020) that they can use to connect online study. But I think students need a laptop or tab to continue study smoothly instead of a smartphone. This is because, the study comprises both listening to lectures and writing feedbacks, and it’s a challenge with a smartphone. My rough estimate is that the laptop/tab deficit may be related to about 30% of Bangladeshi students. If I count 30% of the total number of all public university students, eight hundred and two thousand five hundred (80,2500) students in 46 public universities (The Daily Prothom Alo, 6th June 2020), then the number comes to two hundred and forty-seven thousand five hundred (24,7500).
Now the questionsare how to find out the needy students, when to start the study and how to solve the financial along with the study management issues? We need to follow a need-based approach, identifying needs in a failing community and assisting to meet those needs, rather than a right-based approach as we need to chalk out practical coping strategies quickly. On light of the need-based approach, I propose a three-stage process and practical strategy to solve the above issues. At first, a three-stage process,which may take up to a month and a half, to identify the needy students and to start online-based study for all,is outlined below:
1. Planning stage: This stage will start to find out students with no laptop/tab to relate to sessions. The advertisement may come by the mass media and the university directly making a phone call to students. After sorting out the needy students, they will be provided with devices. This process can take up to a whole month.
2. Testing stage: The test phase will be an online mode pilot stage and it could be another week. At this stage, teachers will start the session with the students and find out if any student is experiencing any serious disruption to continue the session. If they find out, they will work with the authorities and try to resolve it within a week. So, this stage can fit in with a total of two weeks.
3. Functional stage: The formal full session will begin at this stage and if any further complications arise, both teachers and students will takenote and they will discuss it with the university authority. A complaint box can be launched on the university website and issues will be graduallyresolved.
We can now plan how to manage financial problems and study management plans.Tackling the issue of buying laptops/tabs for all needy students is a real challenge for the government. In this case, needy students based on purchasing capacity can be divided into two: partially able and incapable. Students who do not have the full capacity to buy a laptop/tab can be subsidised by the government. The other half of the students have to be fully funded by the government. Apart from this, possible sources could be universities and their respective departments becauseno university is functionally running, and all types of games, hall subsidies and other types of investments are stopped now; thus, the budget of these sectors can be shared with the government’s fund to buy devices for students. Moreover, it’s good news that the ADB has agreed to provide internet to the university students in Bangladesh by September amid the pandemic (The Daily Prothom Alo, 6th June 2020), and after that, the Ministry of Education can talk to the Grameen phone or other companies to provide internet package for students with a lower rate. We can also use advantages of various app companies as they have expanded their facilities to make group calls, for example, the Zoom allows 100 participants by default in each meeting and the Skype has created a new video chatting option called ‘Meet Now’ -50 people can call at once and it is suitable for webinars or conference calls.
Moreover, all slides and texts must be uploaded to the university website so that students can download these if they can’t join the session or they can review later. The laboratory work and some sessional courses, such as the Computer Application, SPSS, NVivo may be difficult to manage remotely. In this case, there should be an approval of undertaking these courses by students in the possible next terms when the situation becomes favourable for classroom learning. However, only PhD students may have access to the university laboratory based on rotation to maintain physical distancing. If the pandemic situation remains unchanged up to the end of the term, the existing examination system may be planned to be changed, for example, the possibility of including more essays/ assignment writings, presentations, oral examinations instead of spot written examinations.
Finally, we need to continue our online education without delay to deal with the pandemic situation. Of course, there can be multiple drawbacks to online education, but we need to sort out these based on the necessity and move forward to work with it.
(Sanjoy Kumar Chanda is associate professor at the Sociology Discipline, Khulna University and is currently pursuing PhD at the University of Leeds, UK).
The situation of Covid-19 is gradually getting worse in Bangladesh and the campus-based education plan is now deemed inappropriate. People from every corner are being infected by the coronavirus and a portion of them is passing away every day. All universities in Bangladesh are closed at the onset of the coronavirus outbreak to avoid large-scale infections. However, no formal guidelines were given to public university students to continue their studies. Now the question is, will millions and millions of students only pass the sedentary life during the pandemic? Of course, this shouldn’t be the demand. We live in a global village and we must survive in the competition. If we don’t run our universities in the same way developed countries doing now, we will fall behind. This is the high time therefore to think of the alternative mode of study without delay.
What is being practiced in developed countries in the midst of the pandemic? I do not think it is wrong or immoral to observe and apply the activities of successful nations. An alternative method of study is online-based learning that is already globally recognised. Since the outbreak of the pandemic, most of the universities in the developed world have been conducting nonlaboratory studies through webinars – a group meetings conducted over the internet. The laboratory-based work has been completely shut down somewhere, and in a few institutions, it is only partially active for postgraduate students on a rota basis. The PhD defence is being organised by the Zoom /Skype. The University of Cambridge has already announced that they will continue their online lectures instead of face-to-face during the next academic year due to the coronavirus (BBC, 19th May 2020).
Albeit online-based education is not an unknown phenomenon in developed countries, this system is not popular in Bangladesh yet. Now we observe that the nation is divided between pro-online and no online. It’s not a bad thing to get involved in a debate, but what we can learn from developed countries is that they keep their universities open through online systems while restricting students’ campus access. The major challenges for Bangladeshi students may be the lack of personal laptops/tabs and stable internet and consequently, pupil may feel uncomfortable and frightened. However, these challenges don’t apply to all students; only a portion of them are not currently ready to receive education by the webinar. A recent survey by the UGC found that 86.62% of university students in Bangladesh have access to smartphones (The Daily Prothom Alo, 6th June 2020) that they can use to connect online study. But I think students need a laptop or tab to continue study smoothly instead of a smartphone. This is because, the study comprises both listening to lectures and writing feedbacks, and it’s a challenge with a smartphone. My rough estimate is that the laptop/tab deficit may be related to about 30% of Bangladeshi students. If I count 30% of the total number of all public university students, eight hundred and two thousand five hundred (80,2500) students in 46 public universities (The Daily Prothom Alo, 6th June 2020), then the number comes to two hundred and forty-seven thousand five hundred (24,7500).
Now the questionsare how to find out the needy students, when to start the study and how to solve the financial along with the study management issues? We need to follow a need-based approach, identifying needs in a failing community and assisting to meet those needs, rather than a right-based approach as we need to chalk out practical coping strategies quickly. On light of the need-based approach, I propose a three-stage process and practical strategy to solve the above issues. At first, a three-stage process,which may take up to a month and a half, to identify the needy students and to start online-based study for all,is outlined below:
1. Planning stage: This stage will start to find out students with no laptop/tab to relate to sessions. The advertisement may come by the mass media and the university directly making a phone call to students. After sorting out the needy students, they will be provided with devices. This process can take up to a whole month.
2. Testing stage: The test phase will be an online mode pilot stage and it could be another week. At this stage, teachers will start the session with the students and find out if any student is experiencing any serious disruption to continue the session. If they find out, they will work with the authorities and try to resolve it within a week. So, this stage can fit in with a total of two weeks.
3. Functional stage: The formal full session will begin at this stage and if any further complications arise, both teachers and students will takenote and they will discuss it with the university authority. A complaint box can be launched on the university website and issues will be graduallyresolved.
We can now plan how to manage financial problems and study management plans.Tackling the issue of buying laptops/tabs for all needy students is a real challenge for the government. In this case, needy students based on purchasing capacity can be divided into two: partially able and incapable. Students who do not have the full capacity to buy a laptop/tab can be subsidised by the government. The other half of the students have to be fully funded by the government. Apart from this, possible sources could be universities and their respective departments becauseno university is functionally running, and all types of games, hall subsidies and other types of investments are stopped now; thus, the budget of these sectors can be shared with the government’s fund to buy devices for students. Moreover, it’s good news that the ADB has agreed to provide internet to the university students in Bangladesh by September amid the pandemic (The Daily Prothom Alo, 6th June 2020), and after that, the Ministry of Education can talk to the Grameen phone or other companies to provide internet package for students with a lower rate. We can also use advantages of various app companies as they have expanded their facilities to make group calls, for example, the Zoom allows 100 participants by default in each meeting and the Skype has created a new video chatting option called ‘Meet Now’ -50 people can call at once and it is suitable for webinars or conference calls.
Moreover, all slides and texts must be uploaded to the university website so that students can download these if they can’t join the session or they can review later. The laboratory work and some sessional courses, such as the Computer Application, SPSS, NVivo may be difficult to manage remotely. In this case, there should be an approval of undertaking these courses by students in the possible next terms when the situation becomes favourable for classroom learning. However, only PhD students may have access to the university laboratory based on rotation to maintain physical distancing. If the pandemic situation remains unchanged up to the end of the term, the existing examination system may be planned to be changed, for example, the possibility of including more essays/ assignment writings, presentations, oral examinations instead of spot written examinations.
Finally, we need to continue our online education without delay to deal with the pandemic situation. Of course, there can be multiple drawbacks to online education, but we need to sort out these based on the necessity and move forward to work with it.
(Sanjoy Kumar Chanda is associate professor at the Sociology Discipline, Khulna University and is currently pursuing PhD at the University of Leeds, UK).
