Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Blended learning

Mains level: Paper 2- Blended learning and related issues

A recent circular by the University Grants Commission (UGC) proposes that all higher educational institutions (HEI) teach 40% of any course online and the rest 60% offline termed as blended learning (BL).
The UGC argues that this “blended mode of teaching” and learning paves the way for:
1) Increased student engagement in learning.
2) Enhanced student-teacher interactions.
3) Improved student learning outcomes.
4) More flexible teaching and learning environments, among other things.
5) Other key benefits such as the increased opportunity for institutional collaborations at a distance and enhanced self-learning accruing from blended learning (BL).
6) BL benefits the teachers as well. It shifts the role of the teacher from being a “knowledge provider to a coach and mentor”.
7) The note adds that BL introduces flexibility in assessment and evaluation patterns as well.

All India Survey on Higher Education (2019-20) report shows that 60.56% of the 42,343 colleges in India are located in rural areas and 78.6% are privately managed.
Only big corporates are better placed to invest in technology and provide such learning.
Second, according to datareportal statistics, Internet penetration in India is only 45% as of January 2021.
This policy will only exacerbate the existing geographical and digital divide.
Third, BL leaves little room for all-round formation of the student that includes the development of their intelligent quotient, emotional quotient, social quotient, physical quotient and spiritual quotient.
The listening part and subsequent interactions with the teacher may get minimised.
Also, the concept note assumes that all students have similar learning styles and have a certain amount of digital literacy to cope with the suggested learning strategies of BL.
This is far from true. Education in India is driven by a teacher-centred approach.

The government should ensure equity in access to technology and bandwidth for all HEIs across the country free of cost.
Massive digital training programmes must be arranged for teachers.
Even the teacher-student ratio needs to be readjusted to implement BL effectively.
This may require the appointment of a greater number of teachers.
The design of the curriculum should be decentralised and based on a bottom-up approach.
More power in such education-related policymaking should be vested with the State governments.
Switching over from a teacher-centric mode of learning at schools to the BL mode at the tertiary level will be difficult for learners.
Hence, the government must think of overhauling the curriculum at the school level as well.
Finally, periodical discussions, feedback mechanisms and support services at all levels would revitalise the implementation of the learning programme of the National Education Policy 2020, BL.
It will also lead to the actualisation of the three cardinal principles of education policy: access, equity and quality.

Government must take steps to address the concerns with blended learning before implementing it.

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