Page 126 - IJET_July2021_final

(Varalakshmi and Arunachalam, 2020). at home (Venable, 2020). Digital
simulations, home lab kits and virtual
7. Access to electricity labs help the students to successfully
complete the practical assignments.
Government initiatives are required
to ensure uninterrupted access to Home lab kits can be customized
electricity in both urban and rural according to the curriculum of the
areas. The faster implementation of institution. Safety and affordability are
schemes like Saubhagya and Deendayal two major concerns when labs come
Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY) home. Simulations and virtual labs can
will help to achieve this goal. address the issue of safety but fail to
provide hands-on experience.
8. Dropouts
Conclusion
In the span of a year there have been
several reports of students dropping This paper examines some of the major
out of educational institutions as they challenges of online learning and ways
cannot afford to continue their studies. to tackle them. Additional empirical
Efforts can be made to secure funding research is the need of the hour in order
from alumni of the institutions, the to study the impact of various factors
management or NGOs to create a fund on online learning. Several researchers
that would help in sponsoring these suggest that self-discipline and higher
children so they can continue with levels of emotional maturity of students
their education. Moreover, some State are basic requirements for online
Governments have announced a fee learning (Hiltz and Wellman, 1997).
waiver for those students who have lost When students exhibit these qualities,
their parents due to COVID-19. Thus, a the online environment becomes safer
joint effort between the Government, and more suitable for learning.
private entities and civil society is the Online learning comes with its own set
need of the hour to soften the economic of pros and cons. Extensive research
impact of the financial backlash faced is required to determine whether the
by families due to the lockdowns and to pros outweigh the cons or vice versa.
ensure that it doesn’t hamper students' However, one thing that is certain is
education (Alvi & Gupta, 2020) that online learning is here to stay. Even
when the pandemic is overcome, online
9. Practical Learning learning can be used to complement
offline education, particularly in case
Practical work including lab assignments
and experiments were considered as of conduct of webinars and workshops
impossible in digital mode. Technology wherein expert speakers can interact
advancements have provided an answer with the participants from anywhere in
to this problem by enabling students to the world.
complete their assignments successfully

116 Indian Journal of Educational Technology
Volume 3, Issue 2, July 2021