Just a couple of months ago, education were confined to classrooms, work was subject to respective designated offices and the world was going around over face to face dealings. Ironically, on the one hand, where we are living in 21st century, when technology is on the tip of our fingers on the contrary our decency grounds (education system) has been lacking behind by using traditional methods. With coming into view of Covid-19, leads to stoppage of world for a while. Initially, the terror of virus has made public locked themselves in their houses and abated the proceedings of livelihood. But an ordinary man can not spend for a long from savings and this arouses for virtualisation as we can say, Making virtue out of necessity. Although many organisations pre-lockdown were administering their businesses through online mediums that includes online education also. But lockdown made virtual world as a new normal to the society. In the era where we are most of depending on the technology from electronic books to electronic cars, virtualisation is something that made our routine life easier.
NEED OF THE HOUR
Lockdown during pandemic would not be possible without depending on the online medium. During these tough times between the devil and the deep sea not only common man making the best use of online medium but also the giant projects were issued through the online medium as one of the fine example is release of movies via over-the-top (OTT) platforms and various others. This could only be attainable with the availability of popular tools to handle online medium like low cost data, smart phones and other gadgets, wireless fidelity etc. The growth of zoom has reached from 10 million users back in December to 300 million users now where 200 million company reported earlier this month i.e. 50% growth jump in a month. By looking into these facts and figures, it is evident that working over the online medium became need of the hour during locked calendar. From the time when usage of electronic gadgets were strictly prohibited in schools and colleges to the time where tables are turned and whole education system are running over virtual medium.
FROM SLUGGISH HOURS TO SWAMPED ONES
The usage of virtual medium during pandemic is originated as need is the mother of invention. Many positive effects of virtualisation has came along the way. The Government has extended connectivity norms for work from home for IT and BPO companies till December 31, 2020 in the wake of pandemic. Covid-19 might be a game changer in regard with work from home as many of the organisations have increased their productivity ratio of their employees. One of the main reasons of yielding more as compared to normal is by saving the couple of hours spend in commuting while other may be distractions from co-employees. Not only these, but lockdown has resulted into decline of pollution in a significant manner and outcome has turned out to be malleable for entirety of wildlife. It has also resulted in reduced levels of global warming across the world. The whole year for students may have turned into a bubble of lather in case of absence of online system of education. Although, examinations at various levels have cancelled with the permission of Education Ministry and respective Governments but final year examinations are still to be held as per the declaration of Hon’ble Supreme Court with the help of online medium of education.
DOUBLE EDGED SWORD
As every action has a reaction and there could be more than one consequence for the occurrence of such reaction. So here we are heading for having a look over here. Initiating from the education, many of the lower class families are not under the situation to buy electronic gadgets like smart phones or laptops for running online classes leads to students unable to attend classes for such time. Many of the complaints among parents of children below 5th standard that children are causing harm due to use of electronic devices such as impact on eyes of children, headache problem to students for using blue lights for long hours, etc. Further working from home results in absence of official environment and decorum. This really turns out to be difficult for the superiors to monitor the work of subordinates over virtual method escorts to problem in monitoring the performance. Other effects as procrastination, delegation of work, imposing on others can be seen as result of work from home. Much use of technology often resulted in numerous cyber crimes as phishing, safeguarding etc. Low internet connectivity of a particular member of the team may leads to delay in the completion of project of the whole team is one of the major shortcoming experienced.
CONCLUSION
Such time period has almost as unpredictable as Balls of a swan where shutting down of schools and colleges for a year long, working from home for official engagements, meetings over video conferencing and cancelling of extremely important arrangements were never been envisaged. During these times many of the organisations initiated the system of work from home for two to four days in a month to boost the morale of employees and to enhance leisure time with family. One of the major deed reflected during these tough times that the traditional education system has become outdated and due to presence of technology students are not required to cram up the whole syllabus. Education system should be shifted from mugging up to conceptualised method with the help of technology by conducting open book exams to strengthen the knowledge of students.
Technology should also not be used more than necessary as excess of anything is bad. On 21st February, 2019, Titan, a famous walkaround robot, is 8ft tall and weighs 60 kg. He is the world’s first commercial entertainment robot artist and was developed by the British company Cyberstein. Wearing a military vest, the robot Titan, walks through the crowd as he greets and introduces himself both in Arabic and English. Technology has been moving very fast than ever in history and also observed that technology and Artificial Intelligence (AI) replacing humans very fast. It has been also seen that Facebook’s Artificial Intelligence robots shut down after they start talking to each other in their own language. Further it has also proved that experiment was abandoned because the programs were not doing the work required, rather than not because they were afraid of the results, as has been reported everywhere. Use of technology has made our lives much facile but being dependent on something that dominates us is also unfavourable as Beware of Greeks who bear gifts. Sudden shift from traditional methods to virtualisation for online shopping, online payment etc is also difficult to adapt for elderly people or prior generation adults.
(The author is a practising Chartered Accountant based out of Uttar Pradesh, Pilibhit, Views expressed are personal)
Credits-
Sonal Maheshwari
(Chartered Accountant)
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