Online education has recently become a vital part of every student’s daily life. A year ago, online education was not so widely popular but due to the pandemic caused by the corona virus, it became essential. Corona virus had an impact on every sector of this world and education was also a part of it. In order to stop corona virus from spreading, governments had to go for lock-down within the country and because of it the academic institutions also had to be shut down like everything else.
In today’s day and age, almost everything is done over the internet and the same goes for education, Online learning was very much being practiced for many years before corona virus but now everyone had to basically shift to the virtual world overnight which didn’t suit everyone. Online education was the only way to continue teaching but it brought a number of problems with it. Though it may have been convenient for many it proved to be a hassle for others.
Let’s talk about some of the merits and demerits of online education
Merits of Online Education
- Convenience
Online education provides enormous amounts of convenience to both students and teachers; everything is available from the comfort of your own house. The efforts of getting ready every day, going out of the house, being stuck in the traffic, and several other issues are not present in online education; you simply have to get up, pick up your phone or laptop, and join the class while taking care of other things as well.
- Cost-Effective
Online education reduces costs to almost half. It cuts the cost of driving to your academic institute every day which mounds up to be quite a big amount at the end of every month. Costs of printing, buying books are not a problem anymore because instead of buying books you can use PDFs available online and you don’t have to print anything because you’re doing everything over the internet such as you email the assignments you had to submit in hardcopy earlier, you are allowed to get the study material from the internet which you had to print for physical classes. It is also financially beneficial for the academic institutes because all of their bills are cutting in half.
- Increase the Confidence
Admit or not you are always a little nervous when talking or presenting in front of a bunch of people, online classes increase the level of confidence because you are in your own comfortable space and you have peace of mind. This is especially beneficial for students who seriously lack confidence. Not having the crowd in front and not having to deal with the anxiety of people judging you can really boost the confidence.
- Promote self-learning and Cooperation
When you are on your own in your home taking a class, you’ll have to learn certain things on your own which will expand your learning abilities and concentration levels. Also, you will cooperate with your class-fellows more in order to solve assignments or general group discussions.
Demerits of Online Education
- Concentration issues
Online education causes a lack of concentration. Taking classes over the internet from the comfort of your home sometimes makes you too comfortable. It has come to the surface through the research of Pakistan #1 thesis writing service that most of the students tend to do other things while attending the online class which is appalling for the teacher as their students are not serious and for the students because they are sabotaging their academics.
- Demand time management skills
When at home, we often delay tasks that we have to do and worry when the deadline comes near. If you won’t assign time properly for completing your assignments, quizzes, or tests you will find yourself buried in copious amounts of work. Managing time is not everyone’s cup of tea and especially for students.
- Disrupts Practice-based Learning
Not every subject can be taught online, some courses require a practical approach, for instance, you wouldn’t trust a doctor who got their degree from studying online. Medical courses, engineering courses, etc, require physical classes as they are more complex than some of the other courses.
- Technological Issues
A giant demerit of online education is technological issues. Sometimes when we are all set to take the class but the laptop won’t open or the phone hangs up or the internet is having connectivity issues or the microphone of the laptop stops working and this is why it’s a huge drawback. It’s unreliable to an extent.
Where online learning has its merits, it also has its demerits, but in times like Covid-19 when all of our lives came to a halt, online education turned out to be the savior and surprisingly turned out to be a lot efficient. Although it took some time for everyone to adjust to it eventually we got used to it and might take advantage of it in the future as well because after all this is what life has come to.