The Coronavirus epidemic has created an unprecedented halt across the globe. There is no sector that COVID-19 hasn’t impacted and India’s management institutes are no exception. The lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus has led many B-schools to cancel their classes, exams, postpone internships, and shift classes to online.
Many B-Schools have opted to teach students through various platforms including Zooms, Microsoft Teams, Google Hangouts, and many more. The B-schools are in limbo over the uncertainty of the situation.
During a webinar organized by Elets Technomedia and digitalLEARNING Magazine, Nitish Jain, President, SP Jain School of Global Management said “ The COVID-19 crisis has both positive and negative effects on the management schools. No one wanted to shift to online classes in the middle of the semester. The crisis is a blessing in disguise for students as students learned lessons- bad things can happen. We have campuses in four countries.”
He said “Online education became popular in 2011 and 12. Over 95 pc students start online courses don’t complete it. We have started cutting edge technology for students. S P Jain developed its own technology platform called Engaged Learning Online (ELO). ELO has become a game-changer. The institute has seamlessly moved classes online without any degradation of quality.
Over ELO Jain said “The new cutting edge technology offers students a virtual but real-time classroom experience. Since the studio is set up with a robotic tracking camera, faculty can stand, move around, and maintain eye contact with students as they do in a class. The faculty can also have one-on-one conversations with a student or speak to the entire class.”
He also said in ELO, each student is live, real size that helps maintain engagement in the class. It also has an alertness meter where you can actually check how alert the student is through the eye movement.
Over internships, he said they have moved it to online and project-based for students. The move is a temporary basis and students can learn something new. Till now we have only focused on campus learning, but in this crisis, online learning can be done simultaneously, he added.
Things will come back to order. New startups will arise and hiring will take place in the next few days. The same thing happened in 2008-09 during the global recession but everything bounced back in 2010, he added.
Pharma firms, online delivery, and agri businesses will be great beneficiaries post COVID crisis.
Over online MBA courses, he said they are providing online management courses that are equivalent to the physical ones. They are even providing short term professional courses for students, which can add value to their resumes. The recruiters ask for skills within a student before they hire.
Lastly, he said the safety of students is a major concern for them and they have delayed the intake of new students till September but are prepared to provide them online classes if things not go as planned.
