When it comes to the teachers, online lectures in Pakistan have not been easy for everyone especially for senior teachers who were not familiar with modern technology!
Over the past few years, remote education has started gaining popularity in Pakistan, especially in the higher education sector. But this year, the COVID-19 pandemic gave online education a notorious steroid injection.
As a response to this novel disease, online education has become common across every educational institute. Schools, colleges, and universities have shifted their classes online. Students are attending lectures by staying at their places.
Such rapid adoption of online lectures is astonishing but not as easy as it seems to be!
Apart from students, it has raised a lot of challenges for the teachers that they have never faced before. Multiple factors when combined make it laborious for the teachers to effectively teach online.
Paradigm Shift – No time to prepare
Online education is a perplexing endeavor; shifting classes online is not a piece of cake. It is essential to understand the situation practically and clearly outline what is expected to support students in this hour of need.
Unfortunately, the educational institutions in Pakistan are not as advanced as other countries when it comes to the standards of teaching, since, they have always disregarded online lectures in the past.
The faculty in Pakistan lacks the experience of online teaching. In developing countries, online education involves a dedicated team of teachers that are specially trained for online classes; which we lack here in Pakistan.
With this sudden transformation, the teachers didn’t get proper time to get training for online lectures and hence weren’t prepared for this new ‘normal’. They are now offering courses that haven’t been devised in this way.
Technological Gap
Online lectures are totally different from in-class or physical lectures, especially when it comes to technology.
With a face-to-face interaction in classrooms and the use of white or blackboards, teachers can conveniently put forward their points.
However, when it comes to online lectures, teachers face a technology gap. Mostly, record their lectures using mobile or webcam and present the same slides from previous teaching practice.
On the other hand, some teachers are using online tools such as Zoom Meetings, Google Meet, Skype, and other video calling apps to deliver their lectures.
However, this practice is a challenge in itself – exploring the tool and then effectively utilizing them is quite tricky.
Not to forget that having a compatible computer, a good internet connection and uninterrupted electricity supply is a must, that adds financial burden on faculty and students both.
Engaging the Students have Never been this Difficult!
Engaging the students and developing their interest is one of the key responsibilities of a teacher and the most challenging task.
In the online lectures, you never know if the student is actually participating and attentively listening to the teacher or not.
Some of the students might pay more attention to their game consoles by sitting in front of the camera and some might be busy in passing remarks about teaching style.
These factors are really discouraging for a teacher and ultimately the teacher is held responsible for not working up to the expectations of the students.
The idea of online lectures in Pakistan outlays the biggest hurdle for the faculty and the trend at which faculty and students are negating the concept of online education, it is highly expected that this transformation will be discarded once this pandemic is over.
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