I hope the government and educational institutions come up with a proper plan to continue with the academic process
ISLAMABAD: After coronavirus cases started to emerge in Pakistan all universities and educational institutions were forced to close down to prevent the spread of the virus through students. Some universities froze their semesters while others continued with online classes that were starting to be offered at an increasing rate. Nevertheless, the government and the HEC came to the right conclusion to end online classes as it was of no use. Many students are from remote areas where there are no internet connections. This makes it impossible for them to take the online classes.
But online assignments are still being conducted by universities. I am a huge critic of this. In my opinion online assignments are also of no use because students have not even covered half their syllabus and online classes were useless from the start. Teachers are constantly giving assignments to students on topics that the latter are completely alien to. It is all up to the students to learn from books and the internet by themselves without any assistance of teachers.
The problem here is that those that have better resources and availability of internet will surely be able to write a better paper. This is an unfair advantage. I hope the government and educational institutions come up with a proper plan to continue with the academic process or else stop it altogether till things improve.
Muhammad Asim Khan
Published in The Express Tribune, April 18th, 2020.
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