Sri Lankan Context of Online Education

In Sri Lanka, education as you know it, is completely based on conventional teaching methodologies. The majority of the educational institutions are controlled by the government. Unfortunately, sri Lanka is still under the process of development and has undergone numerous economic crisis since time immemorial, and very few new trends are seen in the educational sector in the country. Despite the fact, with the launching of several websites, the country has taken a small step towards novelty.

yet, the major change of the traditional sri Lankan classroom is that the black-board is replaced by the white-board in schools outside the capital, and the white-board is replaced by the smart-board in some international schools, and in few schools in the capital. Maybe you belong to the privileged class in the country, and is already amazed by the smart-board technology which is available in your school. But, do you know that other countries started using smart-boards in 1992?

Sri Lanka Vs The World 

In short, Sri Lanka is still way behind the technology and innovations, and the parents have lesser scope on educational trends. Robotics is already replacing the profession of the human teacher, while students worldwide join in online classes and share their knowledge. But, we, on the other hand, still depend on a “board”

Why Do We Need Online Education?

Online education is one of the most recent trends available in global education. Its importance suddenly emerged in third world countries, as the governments all over the world temporarily started shutting down schools, due to CoVid-19 outbreak.

• To start with, the biggest advantage of an online class is that anybody all over the country/world with an efficient internet connection can connect with the best teachers around the globe.
• Secondly, online education opens opportunities to find the best teachers who deviate from traditional teaching methodologies, who bring next level standards to education
• To add to that, online education saves time, as it does not involve travelling, payment queues, and meaningless waiting hours. you just have to take the phone into your hand, and start learning.
• The best characteristic of online education is that it does not have all the sacrosanct school/institutional rules. There are no dress codes in online classes. 
• Apart from that, Online education brings all new technological, possibilities to teachers and students. They can easily record a class, share a video lesson, show an image which helps to better understand the lesson, or to direct students to an educational website. It diverges the teacher from the teacher-centered educational background, and opens practical means for students to explore new subject matters by themselves.

• Since there are no opportunities to travel and there are no recesses between classes, and the parent holds the full responsibility of the child’s physical atmosphere, while the teacher educates him/her, there is a less tendency for the child to involve in distracting relationships or activities.

Downsides of Online Education

• Even though there are many advantages in online education, it has some considerable downsides too. To start with, the, minimum technical knowledge required to set up an online class, still seems to be a burden for many who are behind technology. Installing the required software such as Skype, Zoom, Canvas, or Google Classroom/Jamboard, and managing online payment methods seem to be challenging activities for the majority of the students.
• Apart from that, online education relies on electricity, and internet connections. If there is a power failure, the student loses the class. Likewise, if the student has poor network coverage or WIFI, he/she will have a negative experience during the session. (However, the problem can be overcome as there are many options to record and share lessons.)

• Another minor drawback of the remote education is that the teacher has less control over the atmosphere of the class. In a worst-case scenario, the teacher will have to announce to switch off the mic of a student because of a loud distracting background noise.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is very clear that there are numerous advantages in online education which give it the ability to surpass the reach of a conventional classroom, and there are very few known drawbacks, with possible remedies. Therefore, if we are is to take a step forward – breaking the established limitations of conventional education, online/remote education is a necessity which should be practiced by every educational institution.