Online classrooms to overtake traditional teaching?

Despite India being the second populous and fastest growing economy, 26 per cent of Indian population remains illiterate (As per Census 2011), which has been a matter of concern for the government.
The major reason behind illiteracy is lack of resources in the interior regions of the country. After understanding and analysing the problem, many educational experts opined that digital medium will definitely play a pivotal role in education and eradication of illiteracy.
“The digital medium has played a significant role in shaping India's education sector teaching methodologies through the last decade. From enabling conceptual learning through multimedia means to making studying more interesting and fun-filled, we have come a long way. The medium also brings in standardisation, uniformity, ensures a qualitative delivery model, explains difficult topics with ease and provides the teacher a wonderful support system,” points Beas Dev Ralhan, CEO & Co-founder, Next Education India Pvt Ltd, Hyderabad.
With PM Narendra Modi’s Digital India initiative there is a great chance to spread digital education into the grass root levels of the country.
Many online classrooms have taken over the internet by storm that explains topics from simple second standard to complicated engineering. In India the present worth of online classroom is estimated to be a $3.5 bn industry. Online education is poised to grow to $40 billion market by 2017.
“Most of the students now a days come prepared over a topic and online classrooms are making our job easier; if students have an idea over a topic, it is really easy for them to concentrate in the class,” shares Subhadra, math teacher from Hyderabad, who teaches children from class six to tenth .
“It is true that digital education helps kids understand better than the classroom as the kids have an opportunity to take ample time for understanding the topic and can access at any point of time,” says Bhavani Krishna, mother of a secondary school kid, who is also in teaching profession.
“Online classrooms work as a great support system for teacher in teaching,” she adds. “Digital medium is most powerful medium today; it can help in supporting programmes like Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan,” suggests Beas Dev Ralhan.
Based on the opinions, it can be said that while online teaching can act like a support system, it cannot take over traditional teaching, atleast not yet.
However, resorting to help from online tutorials in an urban trend and unless conscious effort is made by the government and rural education institutions, the trend will take a long time to catch up in remote regions of India. Availability of internet is key to this effort.

Vaishnavi Girish