Education has been badly hit due to the outbreak of corona pandemic with millions of students stranded at home, staring at the screens and receiving instruction passively
School leaders think that their responsibility is to take classes to every student sitting at home through virtual devices but even they contend that with these classes, all around holistic development of the student can not be achieved. A typical report card generated from such cases does not include assessment of communication skills, vocabulary, critical thinking and scientific aptitude. If all of this was not demoralising enough, parents also are not on the side of the schools. They have numerous grievances about online teaching, both structure and methodology. Many refuse to pay the fees at all and most think that they do not receive enough value for money. They are of the opinion that online classes should be regulated in terms of the number of hours of screen time each day to give balance to study and play. Many studies have been conducted recently by schools and NGO’s but there is a lack of favourable opinion from the parents’ side who are an important stakeholders in the learning system, more so, when it is happening from the home. The current study focuses on the views of parents of pre-primary and primary classes taking place in virtual mode since they control the learning environment at home and support setting up of a physical space intended for learning to encourage the children to study seamlessly.
Recently, parents have vehemently opposed the Ministry of Home Affairs suggestion that schools should be opened now. An online petition on change.org has garnered more than two lakhs signatures, urging the government not to start schools until there are “zero COVID cases”, describing the idea of restarting school as “playing with fire”. An empirical study conducted by
The Covid-19 pandemic has put severe restrictions on people’s behaviour worldwide
One of the biggest challenges faced by parents today is how to maximise the benefits and minimise the risks of internet use among young children and teenagers. Effective parental mediation is one of the important actions for promoting children’s safe and responsible use of internet
The survey was conducted for ten schools of Delhi-NCR region, focusing only on primary classes. The total number of parents in this category was 5119. The survey questionnaire was sent to all the parents, requesting them to fill it for the purpose of assisting the schools to improve online education system. It was done on voluntary basis and out of approximately 5199 parents, 2032 responded within a week, making it a 40% return of the questionnaire. It was administered through google classroom on which the students were taking online classes. As it was a voluntary survey, only those parents responded who wanted to participate in the study. To keep up with the ethics of taking survey study, it remained anonymous and parents were neither asked to write their names nor email id. They also didn’t have to write the child’s name and class since the teachers collected the responses which came on their google classroom platform. Utmost care was taken neither to send a reminder to the parents nor were they coaxed through the child studying in the respective class. Data was collected on google form and then analysed through graphical representation with the help of percentage for each category/question asked.
Around 76% of the parents think that their children are engaged with the online classes and approximately 75% believe that the online program is working for them, showing their satisfaction with the current educational setting. However, 55% of the respondents opine that the duration of the classes should only be one hour with about 36.5% saying that they prefer a duration of two hours for the class. Clearly, parents are willing to send their children for three to four hours in the regular school where they also spend time playing in open spaces and interacting with peers in the class. However, they prefer to limit the screen time for their children. Teaching method is the most important factor to 41.7% of the parents for enhancing the teaching-learning process, with around 30% saying that personalised attention can improve the process. Personalised learning experience and experiential learning go a long way in making learning effective for such young students since they lead to a deeper level of understanding. So far as the ill-effects of online classes on children’s health, more than 74% do not think this to be true and 76% agree or strongly agree with the need of online classes in the current scenario with the caveat that duration of online classes must be reduced.
More than 81% of the parents feel connected with the online classes and 78.4% believe that online learning program is working for their children. Also, 72% of the respondents think that online classes should have the duration of two to three hours per day which is at least 50% less than the time spent in the regular school. Nearly 40% of the parents think that teaching methodology is the most important factor that can enhance the teaching and learning process, followed by personalised attention (26%) and quality of e-content. Face to face learning provides benefits from learning by doing, being able to bodily and sensorially experience a whole setting for motivating and encouraging the students since in-person interaction and learning from peers can not happen in online teaching. Thus, interaction between students and teachers is far more effective as it leads to cultivating personal relations. Technical issues (56.2%) are the most important source of distraction during online classes. So far as the health effects of online teaching are concerned, more than 60% of the parents do not think that there have been any adverse impacts. This number is lower than the previous group, illustrating that in early adolescence years, children start using digital platforms for more than the time approved by parents. However, more than 75% of the parents either agree or strongly agree with the need of the online classes, roughly the same number as the previous group.
The Covid-19 pandemic initiated an extensive, sudden and dramatic digital transformation in the society. It forced the schools and the families to take an extraordinary digital leap in our everyday life and practices. Suddenly an entire generation of young parents had to start managing and mastering digital tools to let their children participate in online education (19). What years of schools’ encouragement to the students and teachers to take to digital platforms couldn’t achieve in a country like India, was achieved at a much faster pace during the pandemic. A study of perceptions of primary school teachers of Indonesia also indicates that countries with great geographic spread and vastly different socio-economic backgrounds takes a humungous effort to succeed in online education
The findings from this research have shown that parental engagement with young students is of great significance for online teaching since they assist their children in taking online classes at home. It has also corroborated that longer stretch of online classes during the school-day is not welcomed by the parents and they think that there is a vast difference between online teaching and offline activities. Besides the teachers’ role in such a teaching process, there is also an equally important role of the parents. However, this study was limited only to ten schools in Delhi-NCR region which primarily catered to students belonging to lower-middle to upper-middle classes of the society. The number of students belonging to economically weaker sections was only 25% of the total school population which primarily suffers from lack of technological savvy as well as tools. Further research is needed to better understand the role, opinion and perception of parents from across the Indian society as far as online teaching is concerned, which is here to stay for an uncertain duration of time in the future.
An effective online engagement between school, students and parents can work only with the confluence of relationships among them. School and parents have to work together for building a learning environment for their children, particularly when they are dependent on them for resources and learning ambience. Schools should share a part of this responsibility for educating parents on the use of digital tools since young children depend on their parents for facilitating online learning for them. Virtual classes are here to stay, much longer than the school authorities and parents had ever anticipated. Teachers got adequate opportunities for training themselves on the use of virtual platforms but it’s time we start looking at the issue from parents’ perspective. When parents have to fill children’s time in a closed space of the home, without contact with peers and teachers, it generates many tensions and conflicts, making everyday life difficult. Parents are unable to cope with the tasks suddenly entrusted to them for academic support at home. Therefore, an extremely important task for future is to prepare the parents for emotional and technological skills to face future potential events. It’s time the government also noticed this to take steps for encouraging them to learn.
Q. No. |
NUR – II |
1 |
Does your child feel connected/ engaged in online classes? |
2 |
Is online learning program working for your child? |
3 |
What should be the duration of online classes according to you? |
4 |
What are the attributes of online classes that enhance the teaching learning process? |
5 |
Has online teaching adversely affected your ward’s health? |
6 |
Do you think that online classes are the need of the hour? |
Q. No. |
III – V |
1 |
Does your child feel connected/ engaged in online classes? |
2 |
Is online learning program working for your child? |
3 |
What should be the duration of online classes according to you? |
4 |
What are the attributes of online classes that enhance the teaching learning process? |
5 |
Has online teaching adversely affected your ward’s health? |
6 |
Do you think that online classes are the need of the hour? |