COVID-19 & Higher Education: A pile of questions

The outbreak of the pandemic COVID-19, to begin within China in December 2019, and its spread to Europe, the United States and India in subsequent weeks, has thrown normal activity into total disarray, leading to governments imposing lockdown in their respective countries.

Before getting down to an analysis of the impact of the pandemic on the state of higher education in India, a few observations about the magnitude of the crisis is in order.

The COVID-19 affected situation stands as of now at over 15,600 as on night of April 18 as regards virus-affected cases and the number of deceased stands at 518. Karnataka, which was No.3 in the list, presently stands at the 11th position, with the number of cases standing at 384, out of which 14 are deceased.

The pandemic has severely affected the economic and educational health of Karnataka. The first decision the government (even before the Central government) took in the field of education was to close down schools and colleges, including university campuses, till April 14, which has been extended.

The government and higher educational institutions (HEIs) quickly announced that online teaching would be conducted by the faculty. But this is easily said than done. While some of the rich private universities promptly announced online teaching, the state-run public universities have faced immense practical problems in implementing the decision.

1. Assuming that some of them in Bengaluru and Mysuru have, in their own small little way, asked their faculty to carry out online teaching, the rest of the public universities located in far-away districts have not been able to implement online teaching due to poorly-equipped facilities at their disposal. Even assuming that the faculty have the facilities and intellectual capability to do online teaching, students have complained about the lack of facilities in their rural homes where they have gone back to, following the closure of colleges.

Some of the additional problems encountered by public HEIs are: In disciplines like Languages, Humanities and Social Sciences, good quality reading material has not been prepared by a large number of teachers who still rely on traditional methods of classroom teaching. The situation may be true in many science-related disciplines too, barring technical education. How would meaningful online teaching be carried out in such situations if the closure of institutions continues for a longer spell?

2. How can online methods be followed for the conduct of practical classes in disciplines where it is absolutely necessary when students have moved out of campus? In the absence of the conduct of practical classes, the conduct of online education would fall flat.

3. In the case of technical courses as well as in commerce and management disciplines, students have to do internships with industry as part of course requirements. How would students be fruitfully able to undergo internship when academic institutions and industries are closed due to lockdown. Some industries may reopen in course of time, but would they be able to comply with internship requirements, concerned as they are with productivity and sales?

4. Another important issue which is faced by HEIs is, how would they make up for the loss of time on account of closure of institutions due to Covid-19. Assuming the mandatory 75% attendance requirement of classes is waived, what would happen to the internal assessment tests and viva voce examinations which are part of the requirements under the semester system in operation?

5. Another vexed issue relates to the placements of students who have to report for duty, caused by the extension of the academic year.

6. What are the plans drawn up for the conduct of semester examinations, evaluation of answer scripts and the announcement of results, all of which will require at least six weeks of time after the completion of the term? That would throw the next year’s academic calendar out of gear, with the 2020-21 academic year starting probably in September.

7. At a more substantial level, it is time the HEIs seriously introspect as to where do they stand in terms of coming up with solutions to dealing with pandemics like the COVID-19. Barring the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), which has come up with a kit, cleared by the Medical Council of India, which can test patients and produce the results in one hour, the other institutions, including IITs, have not risen to the occasion, notwithstanding the huge sums of money pumped in by the Government of India to them. Even the modelling about the likely number of COVID-19 cases the country would face, the relationship between testing and likely mortality rate, are done by Indian mathematicians and others working in UK and USA. It is a sad commentary on the relevance of research carried out by India’s HEIs.

8. Last but by no means the least important issue is the likely possibility of budgetary allocations made to higher education being reduced and transferred to areas which are more important for the government as a result of the health pandemic becoming an economic pandemic.

While reduction in spending on higher education may be justified by the powers be, the government, in the long-run, should earmark the much-promised 6% of the GDP on higher education and equally importantly, increase the budgetary allocation for healthcare.

One shudders to think of a situation where the virus would be airborne and the consequent damage it can cause to humanity. Priority should be to encourage research on finding medical solutions to future pandemics rather than simply extending lockdowns.

(The writer is former Professor of Political Science and former Dean, Faculty of Arts, Bangalore University)