Covid-19 the pandemic has already significantly disrupted the entire educational sector and the country's economic & social system. A genuine question comes in our mind, how the educational Institute will run immediately after National Lockdown or partly lockdown? “Multi-Shift Learning” or MSL could be the best option. In this digital era, people are simply considering digital / e-learning through mobile or Internet say for example Google meeting, webinar and so on but they are forgetting two important things: 1) nearly 60% of populations in India are rural-based and it is very difficult for them to access the internet facilities as well as the costs everywhere. 2) Nearly 1,417 of India's 18,452 villages or 7.3% of the total have 100% household electricity connectivity, about 31 million homes are still in the dark (official data as on 31st Jan 2020). Moreover, in India, it is not possible to Government and other private Institutions to change/transform all of a sudden the entire educational infrastructure say from the physical classroom (chalk & talk and Gurukul system of education) to digital or smart classes everywhere. So, there is serious doubt about the assurance of quality education online.
The MSL Model: Distancing –Infrastructure matrix
B Schools, Engineering Institutes as well as other professional Institutions are going to face a big challenge immediately after the 3.0 or 4.0 Lockdown in India. Policymakers or Institutional heads should think how best way they can run different programmes /courses by maintaining social distancing within the existing infrastructure/resources. By, considering the above two important variables: Social Distancing Attitude as Strategy and Infrastructure development for Physical as well as digital / online learning as Operational Management; the policy makers can select the best option from Distancing-Infrastructure Matrix (Fig. 1) where the vertical axis measures the Infrastructure Development and the horizontal axis shows the Social Distancing Attitude .
Each of these dimensions has divided into two categories of High and Moderate, making up the matrix of four cells: Thrive, Survive & Sustain, Gradual Die and Immediate Die. And it is no need to mention the most economic and acceptable one is Survive & Sustain. But In this pandemic situation if one Educational Institute wants to survive and sustain in a very economic manner they must follow the 6 important Principles of MSL:
1. Shift with section based Education: By Maintaining Social Distancing (3'x3') in a classroom (say, 30'x15'), max. 36-40 no. of students can be accommodate at a time, either in semi-circle shape or back to back shape (4 lines and 9-10 rows). So if there are 10 classrooms, altogether 360 - 400 students can be accommodated in Morning shift (say 8.0 a.m to 1.0 p.m) and another 360-400 students in the second shift (say, 2.0 p.m to 7.0 p.m) from Monday to Saturday in the same building or campus.
2. Standard Class Timing: Class timing would be 50 minutes and there will be 10 minutes break between two classes but no long break for safety concerns in a shift.
3. Flexible time table for Faculty members: Flexi time table (9 working hours) need to provide to the faculty members to attend both the shifts like Group – A, 8.0 a.m to 5.0 p.m; Group – B, 9.0 a.m to 6.0 p.m and Group – C, from 10.0 a.m to 7.0 p.m. For Administrative and other supporting staff 9 hours services at stress from first hours.
4. The Standard class routine: A class of 72-80 students can be divided into two sections and a standard class routine can be set from Monday to Saturday in such a way so that subjects, credits, no. classes/hours and available expertise/faculty members can maintain accordingly.
5. E-Library & Physical work at Library: students should use E library as much as possible and for issuing books etc. they must maintain social distancing in library, mentioned in their routine.
6. Restrictions in Social Gathering: Canteen, annual functions, conference, seminar etc.
However, to make this model successful students and staff should maintain few rules and regulation very strictly like 1) maintaining Social / Physical distancing, 2) Carrying Hand Sanitizer, using Mask (layered) without opening any moment, 3) Use By-Cycle (if possible) instead of using public transport or share taxi/car etc. Rule violators can be punished under the sections – 188 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Therefore, as an important outcome the medium size Institutes / colleges will be able to provide quality education to their students with 100% safety and secure manner. Finally, digital learning cannot be an alternative to physical classroom learning but we should learn how to live with online & off line education, together.
(Dr. Shyamal Gomes is a Professor at Department of Human Resource Management, Xavier Institute of Social Service, Ranchi)
