The way forward in online schooling

Optimizing Online Schooling [Part 5/5] Arriving at an optimal way forward

Education
Vishwajeet Borate29 Comments on Optimizing Online Schooling [Part 5/5] Arriving at an optimal way forward

We have discussed the pain points suffered by students, their parents, teachers and school managements due to online schooling in the previous posts. Let us now try to create a platform that will help us to arrive at an optimal solution. Let us be clear at the beginning itself that the solution that we will arrive at can never be a win-win situation for all but it can certainly be a better solution for all than what we are currently facing.

The first and most important thing for all the stakeholders should be to re-establish the faith among each other. Open communication between stakeholders, especially between parents and school managements and between teachers and school managements should be the starting point to achieve this. Only when we understand each other’s pain points empathetically can we arrive at a positive and optimal road map to move forward. 

Let us first discuss the need for online schooling itself, because many parents say that we need to do away with it completely. Parents should first realize that online schooling of their children is not what schools and teachers would ideally prefer doing. Like them, even schools and teachers wish that children come to school and attend regular classes. However, under the given circumstances, it is not permitted by the Government to reopen the schools for students. The question parents should ask themselves is:

Can we afford to keep our children away from formal education for an entire year?

Parents should understand that while they and their children are not comfortable with online schooling, even the teachers and schools are not comfortable teaching children online. But they have to still undertake online teaching to ensure that the education of children goes on. The fact is that while no school, teacher, parent or student prefers online schooling, we will have to accept it as the only way forward till the pandemic situation improves and schools are allowed to reopen. Agreed, that online teaching is not the best way to educate our children but then, let us ask ourselves:

Would it have been any better if schools and teachers would have never undertaken online teaching during the entire year?

If online schooling is to be discontinued, do we have a better solution to ensure that our children’s education continues during the pandemic?

None of us has perfect solutions to most of the problems that the pandemic has put in front of us. The only way to move forward in such an unprecedented scenario is to accept the fact that everyone will have to bear some pain. We cannot expect perfect, -everyone-happy- solutions to problems and challenges thrown at us by the pandemic. But we can certainly keep moving forward by accepting the ground realities, by adjusting and continuously fine-tuning and improvising as we move forward. To put it very simply, something is always better than nothing at all!

Next, let us discuss the fees issue. 

Whenever parents seek admission of their child in a private school, they are well aware of the fee structure of that school. They chose to educate their child in a private school because they trust that the school will give their child the best possible education and also because the fee structure of the school falls within their affordability range. 

Education of children now becomes a partnership between the parents and the school. A partnership based on trust. And that is why in India, schools are mandatorily managed by trusts and societies. Many parents are unaware of the fact that in India, private schools are not proprietary businesses where the promoter can take home the profits. Every school in India is promoted and managed as per the strict rules prescribed in the Societies and Trust Acts and the Government also ensures that there are no irregularities in the operations of these trusts. In fact, over the last 10 years, the Government has ensured extremely tight control over the functioning of these trusts. Hence parents should stop seeing school managements as education mafias and should see them in a positive light.

I had mentioned in my previous post that at the core of most of the schools, there is an individual who has a dream of doing his bit in filling up the wide gap that exists in the Indian school education system, there is a passionate individual who has sacrificed his flourishing career or invested his savings in making his dream of starting a school a reality. So, it’s high time that we see these promoters of schools as promoters of education. Otherwise, rarely will anyone be interested in setting up new schools in the coming days.

Every private school whether premium or budget teaches many students free of cost and most of the times, this is done silently and hence people are not aware of it. But even a charitable organization needs a healthy cash flow to keep on doing the good workdays after days. Hence parents should ensure that they pay the fees regularly so that the operations of the school go on for everyone’s benefit.

Of course, the demand of the parents that fees be reduced as long as their children are attending online schooling from homes is quite understandable. Accordingly, almost all schools had already reduced their fee structures as per Government instructions. 

School managements should take the parents into confidence and arrive at a viable and justifiable fee structure for the next academic year. They should realize that they will have to bear losses till the pandemic does not allow students to attend school physically.

Parents should also ensure that they pay the fees regularly once a reduced fee structure is agreed upon. It seems that the parent’s employment and incomes are not very adversely affected by the current pandemic situation as they were last year. 

School managements should immediately pass on the benefit of these steps to the teachers by paying them as much salary as they can if not full salaries. 

The Government, especially the banks can play an important role in ensuring that school managements are having ample cushioning to continue its operations. Banks can provide EMI holidays on loans and landlords (lessors) can forgo their rent until the school’s fee collections return to normal. 

In the current scenario, everyone will have to give up something to keep the show going on. Let us together ensure that we shift the focus once again to giving the best possible education to our children, let’s make our students the centre of our focus again.

This is the final part of the 5 series posts titled Optimizing Online Schooling written by Vishwajeet Borate. In case you haven’t read the earlier posts that discuss the pain points of students, parents and teachers during the pandemic and online schooling, you can click on the links below to read them:

Related Posts

Understanding the pain of school managements during the pandemic

Optimizing Online Schooling [Part 4/5] Understanding the pain of school managements.

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How is online schooling affecting teachers?

Optimizing Online Schooling [Part 3/5] How is online schooling affecting teachers?

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Pain points of parents in online schooling

Optmizing Online Schooling [Part 2/5] Understanding the pain-points of student’s parents:

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29 thoughts on “Optimizing Online Schooling [Part 5/5] Arriving at an optimal way forward”

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