Online Education; The Way Forward...

News comes in from CIE & Mr. Shafqat Mehmood about the cancellation of Examinations. Cambridge will be allotting grades based on the performances of students in the previous session & their performances in schools while Pakistani Federal Education Board has announced that students’ performance would be assessed based on their previous year’s results for students of 10th & 12th (9th & 11th) while students of 9th & 11th would take their exams next year (for 10th & 12th) and their results will be assed based on those.

These decisions not only signify that we, in Pakistan, never prepared ourselves for online education, but also laments how poor Pakistan’s education system really is. For the former though, it is understood that almost no nation had actually foreseen or ever prepared for an epidemic/pandemic and hence no one was actually prepared to offer their education online.

Cancellation of Board Exams in Pakistan and Awarding of Grade based on last year’s performance speaks volumes about the quality of schools in Pakistan. When we think about it, this shows how little our schools are trusted by our educational boards in contrast with how Cambridge has trust in their educational system, their evaluation criteria and the schools that offer O & A level. For those unaware, Cambridge has asked schools to evaluate their students based on some pre-set criteria and share the reports with Cambridge after which, Cambridge International Examinations, or, CIE, will award the grades to students.

This is not just limited to secondary education. Universities in Pakistan have also been left speechless by the events that have transpired. Almost all universities in Pakistan depend upon physical classes & practicals

Although it could be argued that Cambridge has done this to avoid massive financial losses, at the end of the day we have to look at the big picture. This big picture leads us to the conclusion that eventually, it is the students who stand to lose the most, CIE or Pakistan Educational Boards.

While most of the students are much relieved because of the cancellation, this is only going to hurt them in the long run. Although we can argue about the effectiveness of the exams, the fact of the matter is that we still rely heavily on the exams to asses the level of capability of the students. The same education then becomes the foundation of university level studies. Since most students will pass the exams without any effort, they wouldn’t pay heed to revising their syllabi. This will result in weak knowledge of the foundation upon which their future studies will be built.

Moving on, as Government closed down all educational institutions, schools, colleges & universities realised that they were not prepared to shift their classes from physical to online, or “Home-to-Home” model. They simply closed down their institutions in the hope that the pandemic would be over soon and they would shift back to their normal routine. Once it became clear that this situation would stick for some time, the institutions had no choice but to shift their classes to the online medium. And so began the rise of video conferencing applications like Zoom, Google Classroom & Microsoft Teams, to name a few. Students of fields like Engineering, Medical, Architecture, Chartered Accountancy, among others, have shifted their classes online.

While students have given mixed reviews regarding the quality of their classes, it is, uptil now, unclear whether the exams would be held online or not. And if they will, how their integrity be ensured. Many institutions have already called off their exams and told students that their grades would be assessed based on their performance in assignments & the projects (if any) they submit. While some institutions are looking into Artificial Technology assistance where the webcams of the computers would be turned on by students and it would be ensured that cheating is not done, this seems like a far fetched idea for a country like Pakistan where many students do not have access to laptops (& computers) or even smart phones for that matter at their homes. It could also be argued that the number of these students would be minute and those students could be called to an exam center where exams could be conducted with proper SOPs.

Add to this fact that most of the “top universities” in Pakistan are already running at full capacity. They are not equipped for physical classes with the (until now non-existent) SOPs of social distancing for educational institutions. The so-called NPO universities would crash (financially) and look for donors and government to help them recover their losses.

In the end, the fact that remains is that for a year or so, quality of education would not be as good as it has been in the past years. Even many companies may consider hiring graduates from last few years instead of the the ones that pass out this year. This pandemic would not only hurt economy, health care & families but would also drastically alter the educational sector. Lets hope that these institutes come up with some innovative solutions soon to combat these unfortunate series of events.