Hybrid Classroom is the Need of the Hour to Promote Advanced Education in Rural India
Education plays a key role in the development of any nation. An educated populace can bring about waves of transformation in the well-being of a country and also fuel its economic growth. As far as India is concerned, although the country enjoys a strong literacy rate a majority of its people, particularly those residing in the rural areas, still remain deprived of high-quality, advanced education.
Clearly, the gears need to be changed and India’s educational ecosystem is in dire need of a rejig. Fortunately, the Covid-19 pandemic ushered an era of online education, which gives a fairly strong hope to the rural residents to enhance their learnings and acquire new skills, even while being physically distant from the educational institutions. It is a fact that a majority of institutions that impart advanced, high-end education are situated in the urban parts of the country. Students in rural India are often discouraged to take up advanced education because of reasons such as urban migration, low budgets, safety issues, etc.
Hybrid Education – A Game Changer
Hybrid learning or blended learning, has emerged as the new norm in education. The practice seamlessly blends the traditional classroom approach with digital learning, where students are given both the options of online as well as offline learning. For those who are unable to physically visit the educational campuses, which could be located in a different city or a country, this option works as a boon. Especially for rural students, who mostly find it difficult to pursue their dreams of achieving higher education, hybrid education gives them the opportunity to broaden their learning horizons.
These students can easily get enrolled in their desired learning programs or courses with the help of new-age devices that are internet-enabled. With the use of these devices, students can conveniently attend e-lectures, access online learning resources and advanced educational content. Moreover, hybrid education models of today are being designed in a way to offer personalised and flexible learning in order to suit the unique learning needs of one and all. One can easily learn at their own pace and style and access educational material at any hour of the day.
Digital knowledge is also a key requisite in today’s world of employment and online education introduces the rural India to this important aspect. Fortunately, data plans and smart devices have become relatively cheaper over the years. Smartphone penetration has more than doubled in rural India since the pandemic, with the key reason being reported as children’s education. Many progressive education technology companies are introducing special, affordable digital solutions for the rural markets in order to make education accessible even to those at the bottom of the pyramid.
Although the education sector in rural India is on a path of steady development, the key force has to come collectively from the government as well as the masses. This can be done by addressing the existing challenges and roadblocks that hinder the spread of education in rural India.
(The author is Mr. Avinash Johri, Executive Director, CVTE India and the views expressed in this article are his own)
