Online education may not disrupt but supplement traditional education, says ABBS Director-MBA

The global pandemic that has forced a country-wide lockdown and has brought to a standstill many industries except Education. Most of top universities and institutions with digital footprints have already taken their operations online. One such institute is Acharya Bangalore B School (ABBS) that moved to the online curriculum in such a short span became a challenge. It also worked towards making it easier for students, who couldn’t travel to their native place and stayed back at the campus. In a conversation with Shiksha.com, Director of MBA programme at ABBS Dr H R Venkatesha shares the initiatives taken by University to ensure the safety of all with no disruption to the curriculum.

Here is the edited excerpt of the conversation:

Q: How today scenario of lockdown and global pandemic is impacted your education system?

A: Sudden lockdown of the country and global pandemic has impacted our education system in many ways:

1. Our institution attracts students not only from different states of India but also from different countries of the world. Sudden lockdown by just giving four hours time created havoc. Students from different parts of the country faced great trouble in reaching their native. Even some foreign students could not leave the country. The institution has taken special care for their stay
2. Some of our programmes were on their verge of completion and some of the programmes such as MBA were just started. It was a challenge to handle both the ends
3. The institute believes in 30:70 principles. That is teaching University syllabus, internal and external exams use to take our 30 per cent of energy. Remaining 70 per cent of the energy we used to develop students outside the classrooms. Our club activities (Marketing, Finance and HR,)  ABBS Toastmaster, TEDxABBS, Armadadon (Reality club), Days’ celebrations, Industrial visits, Debates, community development, guest lectures, student research, MOOC programmes are some of our activities to make students corporate ready. Even though classroom activities can be more or less brought to the online platform, it has become a challenge for us to bring outside classroom activities close to their optimum utility online. We tried to organise some of these activities online, but are not that effective

Q: What are some of the interesting initiatives your institute has taken to make it easy for your students and also contribute to eradication of this pandemic?

A: Each faculty is given 15 students from each semester and asked to mentor them. These mentors not only coach mentees on assignments and other academic activities such as attendance but also counsel them on dangers of Coronavirus, the importance of social distancing, dos and don’ts and the importance of being locked down. We are sure this has made a lot of difference in each student’s family and in their community. 

One of our faculty created a social awareness video on Coronavirus. Students shared their clips. This has gone viral. This is one of our ‘community development’ activity in these challenging times.

Q: How is the institute planning to conduct exams, evaluate and declare result online?

A: The institute has successfully conducted open book internal exams online and each student submitted handwritten answers online to their respective mentor. These were then evaluated and communicated to students. With this experience, it should be possible for the institution to conduct exams online and declare results if the situation demands.

Q: How are students responding to new initiatives?

A: Some of the important new initiatives taken by the institute are:

1. ‘Toastmaster club’ has gone online. Students and faculty coordinators have taken initiatives to create a website and conduct the Toastmaster sessions online four times. There has been a good response from the member students
2. Guest lectures have been organised online. The response has been very good. More than 90 per cent of students participated in the lectures
3. A committee has been formed consisting of senior professors and director to evaluate the mentoring and other activities of the department.  This has given good results to know the gaps in the system and to address the same.

Q: What impact it will have on students’ interpersonal and team management skills?

A: The overall personality development of students, including interpersonal and team management skills are important for any student and more for an MBA student. The USP of our institution is building character and personality development of our students. To some extent, this has been addressed through Socially Relevant Project (SRP) given to each student. Each student is given a social problem. He has to study the problem and has to address it through a Social Entreprise. The essence of understanding problem would make each student a better human being. The student has also developed a Business Plan for solving this social problem through Social Entrepreneurship. The main objectives of Social entrepreneurship is solving the social problem and making profit too. The students' performance follow up in SRP is given to each faculty (15 students) and the overall assessment is made by a Senior Professor and Director. The Director with the assistance of a faculty had coined close to 200 social problems and explained to students.  The students’ involvement has been heartening. 

An online debating club has been initiated. Students participated enthusiastically and the alumni worked as judges. The debating spirit of the students was commendable. Students spoke both for and against the topic ‘Did India not have any option other than the country’s complete lockdown for Covid-19’.

Q: What are the best practices that the college is adopting to ensure seamless online learning?

A: The best practices that the college is adopting to ensure seamless online learning are as follows:

1. Faculty members are taking classes from 9 am-8 pm depending on the student's convenience.  The classes after 4 pm are scheduled to clarify students’ doubts.
2. After completion of every module, evaluation is carried out online to know the student’s understanding of the online classes.
3. The institute has developed a seamless communication from bottom to top and vice versa. Students are in direct touch with the Director, Coordinators and Mentors, in addition with faculty on regular online classes. Director had meetings with coordinators and staff. The top management of the institution was in regular touch with heads of the institution through weekly meetings. These initiatives helped to address the teething problems of online classes and for improvement.

Q: How will today’s situation revolutionise online learning in India and abroad?

A: Online learning may not disrupt the traditional learning to the extent of substituting it, at least in the medium term. But online education would definitely supplement traditional education. Some of the value-adding activities like coaching and skill development may go online in a big way.