 and a very good evening to everybody, my students, the teachers, the team of SkillSphere and our very eminent judges and a very warm welcome to everybody who is watching us live on Facebook. We are here on day two of our event EQuest which is basically the working on the concept of IDEA, research and debate. And that is what our students have been doing over the last one week. They have been preparing themselves. And yesterday we had a very enriching case study presentation where Mr. Mishra Deshmukh and Dr. Shilpa gave some really meaningful insights to our students. And today on day two, our students are all geared up to present their debates on a very, very interesting topic. Without further ado, let me introduce the master for today, the person who's going to be taking on this event and leading this. Please put your hands together virtually for Ms. Pranjali Mughal. She is the trainer at SkillSphere Education. Everybody in Elk Road knows SkillSphere Education and the work that they do. It is India's largest and finest skill set based organization and has been associated with our school for over seven years now. Through their number of programs like EnlightenMUN and Emergence Lead and Global Geogasa, they have been making a difference in students' lives and training them on communication skills, public speaking skills and general awareness. Pranjali, welcome and the show is all yours. Thank you so much, Sugandha Ma'am, for that lovely introduction. And I'm so, so excited to see all our debaters from Elpa International School today who are going to debate. Without wasting any more time, let me tell you that today we're going to witness a debate on the motion online learning is here to stay. The COVID-19 virus has completely changed the way education operates. Online learning as a modality of teaching and learning has been thrust upon education and can no longer be considered an emerging reality. It is here. So today our debaters are going to actually discuss whether online education is here to stay or not. Without any further ado, let me introduce you to our exceptional debaters for the day. From the proposition side we have Kashwi Lalvani. Kashwi, can you say hi? Hello. Hello. Then we have Antara Mahale. Hello. We have Madhur Javle. Hello. Hello. And this was the proposition and now it's time to introduce the opposition. So from the opposition side we have Prakhar Sharma. Hi everyone. We have Anavi Khanna. Hello everyone. And we have Shubhika Jain. Hi. All right, so that was our debating team for the day and we also have some exceptional judges who have joined us today who will be judging our debate for the day. Let us welcome our first judge, Mr. Abdullah Parker. To introduce him, let me introduce you to Mr. Abdullah. Leadership, mentoring and understanding human behavior are some of the foundational traits that have helped Mr. Abdullah develop into an enabler of younger minds. His love for debating began back in graduate school through model UNs, a fresh affair even after nine years of initiation. Today, Mr. Abdullah is helming skills for your expansion in the Middle Eastern markets of UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and Qatar. We really warmly welcome you, Mr. Abdullah, for today's debate. Thank you so much, Pranjali. I am honored to have this opportunity to judge this debate of these excited students. Wonderful, that's good to hear, sir. And let me introduce you to our next judge for the day. So Shubhi Mathur. Ms. Shubhi Mathur. Hi, Pranjali. Hi. So Ms. Shubhi Mathur is a policy consultant with the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship. She is driving up efforts to set up India's first skill regulator, National Council. And she also happens to be very instrumental in helping the Shiv Sena win the Maharashtra Legislative elections in 2019. She has also been the CAUTI member at Skills for Education since its inception. And she is extremely passionate about debating, public speaking and has also developed the entire global Jigyaasa resource base for us. So Shubhi, ma'am, we warmly welcome you to judge today's debate. Thank you so much for the lovely introduction and I'm really happy to be with the younger lot. I guess it will be a lot of fun. So all the best to all the students. Absolutely, absolutely. And in fact, it's time for me to explain to the students and all our audience members the basic flow of today's debate. So today we are going to follow the Bombay style of debate and this is how the flow would be like. The opening would be for three minutes each. So three minutes for the proposition and three minutes for the opposition followed by a rebuttal round for a total of seven minutes and closing for two minutes for each of the teams. So that is going to be the basic flow of today's debate. Let me also introduce you to the judging criteria that we're going to follow. So we're going to look at public speaking and delivery. The same time would be be focusing on argumentation, presentation of substantive performance in the rebuttals and overall discipline. So with that students and all our audience members, teachers and our esteemed judges, we are very happy to inform you that this begins the debate for the day without wasting any more time. Students, I want to wish you all the very best and you may proceed. Who are we starting with Pranjali? So we would have the proposition going first with their introduction. That would be me. Thank you for this opportunity. Good evening, honorable adjudicators and worthy opposition. My name is Madhur and I will be speaking on the affirmative side on the topic for today's debate. Online learning is here to stay. Online learning has been around for quite a bit of time and has had massive rates of success in the past. But due to the worldwide pandemic, it has become more widespread than ever before. A wide variety of reasons exist that prove online learning provides a platform that is stable for education. The first point I would like to bring up is the economic benefits of online schooling for school administrations. It is evident that school buildings will be put out of commission. This will reduce expenses for electricity, water, maintenance, printing, et cetera. Moving on from economic benefits, a massive misconception rather myth among most people today is that all forms of looking at a screen are bad. Let's dive deeper into this. Something known as blue light is the main source of harmful exposure to our eyes while using a screen. It is the reason the concepts of screens, it is the reason the concept of screens are harmful for us exist. But a feature that is inbuilt into most devices these days is called a blue light filter. It reduces the harmful blue light and enables us to use a screen for the longer period of time. We also look into the fact that many studies show online learning has shown better grasping of concepts as well as timely assignment submissions. Moving on, we come to the concept of assessments. An example of this is VVM online level one which restarts the test on switching the tab. So if you're 40 minutes into the test and you even minimize the tab or you switch a tab, the entire test will restart and you will have to give the entire thing all over again. Most secure ways will be developed once learning goes further. Now my teammate will go deeper into the advantages of online learning. Thank you, mother. Good afternoon, on-label educators, members of the opposition and audience. Due to the current pandemic, many nations are under lockdown. Educators and students have quickly translated to remote learning. Online learning is the new normal level due to the advancements in technologies like VR and more affordable internet access. You have access to quality education at the click of a button wherever and whenever you want. We have entered a new era, the accelerated acceptance of online education. It enables the teacher and the student to set their own learning pace. A case study by KPMG in India suggested that there is going to be a phenomenal six-fold rise in the number of users enrolled for various online learning courses. It is expected to grow to about 9.6 million by the end of next year. You can access world's best university courses by sitting in your room. A Brandon Hall study revealed that learning online typically requires 40% to 60% less employee time than learning the same subject in a traditional classroom setting. Other costs that are related to transport, infrastructure, et cetera, don't affect the online student. This gives online education more preference, meaning the changes this pandemic has caused might be here to stay. I would like to conclude by saying that change is the only constant. Thank you. Okay, do we have the third member from the proposition who would like to give the introductory speech or do we move ahead? Ma'am, I think we should move ahead. All right, thank you. With that, it's time for the opposition to present their views. Thank you, ma'am. A very good evening to the debate judges, moderator, worthy opponents, fellow teammates and distinguished guests. We as a team will be speaking against the motion online learning is here to stay. To start things off, we would like to discuss the concept of a blue light filter. How effective is it really? And let us do this substantially. In 1998, a study in the Journal of Cyber Psychology and Behavior found that a higher screen time is associated with social, psychological and occupational impairments. Now that was before filters. Ironically, 19 years later in 2007, the US study of citizens found that spending more than 6,000 a device, which is quite average for a student, including the time he spends to do homework and other assignments, is lethal, creates the risk of depression, anxiety and severe loss of productivity. We can say that the technological revolution, for in case the blue light filter would take, could not change this result even after a massive time period of two decades. WHO projected that by the year 2030, depression will be the leading disease. And if we let online education continue, we are only breaking that date closer to us. To what my teammate had to say, there are quite a few advantages of online learning that are worth consideration. In a country like India, access to the internet is pitifully low. This online education system is bound to fail. According to the 2017 to 18, national samples survey report on education, only 24% of Indian households had internet access and only 15% of rural households had internet services. And this has exposed us to the divide between a privilege and those who do not have access. And from a futuristic point of view, if we look at this gap in the future, it's going to be very hard to fill this and could in turn widen the gap between the rich and the poor and create serious social barriers. Exactly, just like my teammate said, we are grateful and we are blessed to be here on an online platform, to be debating and deliberating on such an important topic and we have a stable internet connection on like so many in our country and like so many around the world. But for those who have these resources, it is said that these people have been misusing these resources. But let me tell you how. Several teachers in the Delhi University said that they were abused and harassed by anonymous attendees during online classes. And this is not all. They have been writing obscene messages on the chat. They started swearing and they have started posting recordings of this on YouTube. And adding onto that, a survey conducted by the buyer shared that the other reasons for children's fondness towards virtual classrooms has absolutely nothing to do with learning because obviously no reprimands from teachers, getting up early in the morning to prepare for school and a large number of students also reported that the freedom to do any other thing, even while classes were on, was a primary appeal behind online classes. Plus everyone talked about how the screen is harmful and how there is a blue light and how we can grasp information in a more better manner and more efficient manner. Well, is this what we think of interaction between peers and teachers and students? Is this what we think of discipline? Is this what we think of education that students are doing something else while classes are going on? And in this case, teachers and students both are facing problems because teachers do not know if a student understood something like that because many a times they fake my problems because they don't know the answer. And those who genuinely have my problems cannot answer. And that is a huge backlog on their skillset. So if these- So if these two intervene, Ms. Anavi, let me inform you, you have exceeded the time limits by almost 45 seconds. So we wouldn't be able to continue with you. Apologies for that. Judges, please make a note of this. And with that, it is time for us to move in the rebuttal round. Students, please remember, you have a total of seven minutes. We start with the opposition presenting their arguments first. Hi, thank you. So in the year 2020 to 2021, the financial year, the resource, the development budget for digital e-learning was reduced to 469 crore from Rs. 604 crore in 2019. So does this show that the government of India itself has understood that e-learning has no scope to replace traditional classrooms? The argument here is that when governments on national levels are accepting that online learning does not deserve a good share in the budget, how does the proposition claim that it will continue and it is here to stay? Oh, first of all, you stated that the budget has definitely been decreased for the learning year 2020 to 2021. But so you didn't state the date when this announcement was made. So if this announcement was made around February or January, it holds no value because the COVID-19 pandemic had not become as great to it, not great to it, it's gravity, had did not get a lot of gravity by that time. It started getting gravity around the month of April, especially, and if this announcement was made any before that it does not really help your cause. Now, moving on, I would like to ask the opposition. The third speaker, Anvi, from the opposition stated that kids start abusing teachers in the middle of classes. Ma'am, I must inform you, there is an app called Microsoft Teams which exists. And this app, it only allows people who are already added to those teams to perform inside those teams. You cannot change your name, you cannot add extra people. If even one person is added to the team, the teacher will know and can kick them out very easily. And you cannot change your name, which is the biggest strength of Microsoft Teams, which allows you to know who is speaking, who is doing what at every single moment of time. How can you justify your statement if such apps exist? Well, see, I highlighted the point of teacher abuse with other points too. So I also highlighted and emphasized on the fact that teachers do not know if their student is understanding something because many a times the student does not or fakes having a mic problem and says that they have an internet issue while the chances are that that may not happen. And as a student who has been going to the experience of online classes, I say this with experience. So the fact that people have been writing obscene messages and disturbing classes, that can also count as abuse. But another main, main problem for the teacher is if she doesn't know what her students are understanding, she is of no value. And that should also count as abuse. Adding to this point. So I would like to ask the... Adding to this point. Yes, we would have Ms. Anavi go forward with her argument. Yes, Ms. Anavi. All right. So I would like to ask the proposition that they said that online learning has the economic benefits. But how would they explain that when I tell you that students in Kerala, 10 years student in Kerala, a class time student in Gujarat, or 50 year old in Assam of committed suicide, just because they couldn't afford resources like and devices like a smartphone or a laptop to conduct online classes? I would like to say to this that suicides have not only been committed due to online education, even previously due to the lack of education or lack of availability to reach to or nearby school suicides have been committed. It is not only because of online education, all this is happening. And taking this into consideration, even government has taken steps, apart from smartphones or laptops, there have been 12 DTH channels which have actually been launched which allow you to pursue your online education without a smartphone. You can just watch TV and understand a particular concept. Adding on to Kashmir's point. Ma'am, I believe I stated and I quote economic benefits for these schools. The schools do not have to pay electricity bills, the schools do not have to pay water bills, nor do they have to pay extra bills for Lichit, anything, except for making sure that their teachers are paid. And ma'am, with this extra money, they can actually help the students that are living or not studying in their school to get more access, to get access to online education, especially in government schools. To answer that, my friend Mazhar, you have mentioned a lot of economic benefits, but to add to that economic benefits of the school. As of 2015, by a UN report, there are more than 700 million people below the poverty line. These people struggle for water, food and sanitation. Do you think that it will be feasible for them to buy a TV, even if a DTH channel is supported? Will it be feasible for them to buy a TV, to get an internet connection, to get electricity when their means of survival are in danger? And adding to this, and adding a question, you have also mentioned that after the, after we knew that the COVID-19 pandemic would require online learning. After that, very recently, CBSC reduced 30% of the syllabus from grades nine to 10 for the academic year 2020-21. Does this not clearly show that the inefficiency and inflexibility of online learning has been accepted again at a national level? So I believe you're saying, sir, I believe that you're saying, we are not able to adapt quickly. So this has only been six months since online learning has been put into play. And out of those first three, four months, many schools did not even begin to teach through online learning methods. This has no correlation between the benefits or the disadvantages of online learning. Rather, it's many schools, especially even in our area, even government schools have started school very late, even in the month of July, even in the month of June. So this is the reason the syllabus was... This is the reason the syllabus was reduced, not because there's disadvantages of online learning. Added to this, I just wanna bring into your notice that 30% syllabus has been reduced only and only for assessment. You, the schools have the freedom to teach that amount of syllabus. In fact, in a better manner through activities and flip teaching. And I think through that, the concepts would actually be more clear as compared to the earlier setup. The 30% is only reduced for assessment sake, which is actually reducing the burden of the children. Redirecting Kashwis point into a question. Opposition, I believe you clearly stated that levels of depression have gone up. And yes, that is very true. But sir, don't you realize that the internet or screens have also led to happiness of many, many people around the world. Gaining access to wifi gives us an access to literally the entire world. We can search up whatever we want. It's in the palm of our hands. So we can search for movies. We can watch inspirational videos. We can look for information on the internet. And regarding the statement you made about blue light, that has no correlation. Blue light has been known to, yes ma'am, just give me two seconds. Blue light has been known to reduce strain on the eyes and allow people to actually stare at a screen for a much longer period of time, seven to eight hours even. Thank you. Thank you so much. Wonderful. That was a really fiery battle, must say. Wonderful and congratulations to all students. And with that, we come to the closing statements by both the teams, starting with the proposition. Yes. Good evening everyone. Rightly quoted by Albert Einstein, education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school. While these words may have been intended in a good humor, they perfectly reflect the fact that education is constantly evolving. From live interactions to feedbacks, assignments to interactive games, digital labs to virtual tours by Google Earth, and even celebrating a birthday in a virtual classroom, the online education actually makes us fall in love with learning as even supported by the founder of the first education app in India, Sir Rabindran Baiju. Cultivating our curiosity and developing our minds, recording of online live lectures have actually helped a child make his concepts more clear by revisiting the topic several times, which was not possible in the earlier setup. The huge spike in internet users of rural areas, which is actually surpassing those of the urban areas by 10% as per the latest report of IAMAI proves its widespread acceptance with about 20 to 30% syllabus covered in the form of activities and flipped learning for higher grades. The existence of online learning not only facilitated education, this academic session, but it has also helped us to stay at home, rather more stay safe and protect our health by not being exposed to the virus. Before concluding, I would like to remind each one of us present here that this current ongoing debate has only and only been possible due to the existence of online learning. Our presence here proves our thorough consent to it and not following it or simply finding faults in it would just reveal an inner conservative nature. So now the choice is ours. Learn effectively by the means of online education or risk your health, go out and study. Thank you. Thank you so much, Ms. Kashmi for that lovely concluding statement. And judges, please note, Ms. Kashmi has actually exceeded the time limit by 20 seconds. With that, we move ahead to the opposition. The opposition, please present your closing statements. Thank you. So the proposition talked about how we are here on this online platform because of online learning. But let me point out, there are so many. I have said this again and again that there's so many in our country along the globe who are facing the challenge of digital poverty and that is not a joke. Now I would like to point out that in a study that was conducted, it was other students who have been failing some of their algebra classes, K-12 algebra classes. So they were divided into two groups. One who went for virtual learning and one who went for social and actually interacting with their teachers in school. And it was found out that those who gave the retest from attending virtual classes had a lower score than that who actually went and attended school. Now I would like to ask all of you a question. We are all here as students and I'm talking to you as a student. We are going and we're experiencing online learning right now. But if we had a chance to actually go to school and interact with our teachers, interact with our peers and interact with other students, would we not want that? Because clearly that is more effective. We are over here questioning the effectiveness of online learning because it is clearly just not effective. Now you talk about, are you really continuity to the point that you cannot grasp information as easily as you can through actually going to school? Now I would like to just conclude by saying one thing. Is this what we think of the future? Is this what we think of education? Would we want our children to have online classes rather than interacting with people? Would we, would our parents not want us to go to school and interact with people or would they want us to be here and sit for an online class? Clearly not. And if this continues in the future, I can tell you without taking it out with guarantee that online learning is not effective and that is why online learning is not here to stay. Thank you. Thank you so much, Ms. Anavi. In fact, this brings us to the end of the debate. I really want to congratulate all the debaters here. You all have done a fabulous job. I must congratulate the school as well for sending you all and encouraging you to participate in this debate. And with that, it is actually time for us to know the results. So I hope our judges are ready with the results. All right. Yes, Mr. Abdullah and Ms. Shubi, are you both ready with the results? We'll just take about two, three minutes. We're just discussing the final details. And I think we should be able to come up. Absolutely. So until the judges are discussing and coming with the results, I would like Mr. Prakash Sharma to share his views regarding today's debate. I love this debate. The whole idea that we will, the debate will be streamed on Facebook as the best part. This is the first time I have been in such an event. The COVID-19 pandemic has struck us hard. And since the advent of online learning is here and the advent of having Zoom and laptop and internet connection, we are, I'm really thankful for all of this. The debate was very fun. I got exposed to a lot of new content, new ways of speaking, and I learned a lot more than I came with. And that's all. Thank you so much, Mr. Prakash. Yes, it was definitely a wonderful debate. We all would agree to that. And with that, I would like to ask Ms. Antira. Ms. Antira, can you share your experience? Yeah. As I had said, this was my first experience. And to be honest, it was really fun. At first, I was a little tensed, but then I feel that the school has taken a very nice initiative in this situation, the pandemic. And yeah, that's it. It was really fun. I hope the school encourages further types of curricular activities. Wonderful, absolutely. In fact, we must be having such debates. The kind of arguments that you all have presented, the kind of questions that you all have raised are definitely something that we all need to think about in today's time and in this entire situation of lockdown. With that, I would like to ask Ms. Anavi to share her experience. Well, it was definitely a great experience. I don't know what to say. I really enjoyed debating. And this is the first online debate, online debate at a window. And I was looking forward to it. But I don't think what I was... So we have a very vast topic in front of us. I was really hoping we would get just a little more time to debate and deliberate on this. Because, well, of course, it's important. And every one of us, one of our at least two minutes to speak about being great. And we could have had a much more effective debate and more qualitative debate, I would say. But nevertheless, it has been great. The proposition was great. We had amazing speakers. And I mean, overall, the experience was really, really good. Amazing. Thank you so much, Ms. Anavi. And with that, let's come to Ms. Shubhika. Yes, Ms. Shubhika. I agree with whatever Anvi had to say that each speaker could have gotten a little more time to stress on more points. But overall, I had a lot of fun. And yeah. All right, thank you, Ms. Shubhika. With that, I would like to take this time to ask our esteemed judges if they have any questions for our debaters for the day. So over to you, judges. If you have any questions that you would like to ask our debaters, Ms. Shubhika and Mr. Abdullah, if you have any questions for our students, we would also be encouraging questions from our audience. So if the audience would like to ask any questions to our students, they are free to do so, all right? I believe the judges are quite stuck as to who should be the winner. Yes, yes. This is definitely a close call. I'm sure. Yes, Subhanda ma'am. I think you definitely agree to that. And we have our judges here. Ms. Shubhika, would you like to ask some questions to our debaters? So it was a wonderful debate, a very close call. All of you performed exceptionally well. So I just have a question for Pranjali. So is it a group win or individual win plus an entire proposition or position wins or are there particular students who get named as the winners? All right. So ma'am, it would be a group win. At the same time, you could announce the best speaker if you would like to. Definitely, definitely. In fact, all of the students were so talented. I was confused that how should it go? It is a very, very close call. One or two marks, right? Abdullah, would you agree with me? Yes, it is very close. I mean, they just shape it by, I think, one or two points. So yeah. Abhi, why don't you go ahead and tell our young friends over here how the scores are looking like? Or rather, let's disclose the winners. Yeah, yeah. So the group that wins is the opposition group. Wow. Congratulations to the opposition. That was really close. I'm definitely sure. Congratulations, Prakhar, Anavi, and Subhika. All right. And Subhi ma'am and Abdullah, so would you like to provide critical feedback to our debaters? Yes. In addition to that, I think there is a certain speaker that I would like to highlight who was the best speaker of sorts, according to me. Abdullah, please share your opinion with me. Madhu from the Proposition Group was, I believe, one of the very good speakers and leading. And just behind one mark was Anavi from the Opposition Group. So many, many congratulations to you both. I just add to Shobhi's statements. Thank you so much, Shobhi. So I believe there was a very close fight between Anavi and Madhu, these two individuals. I think they are just apart by one point. So the way in which the debates were being put forward, they were very, very well articulated. And I think we were super excited to see the debate. In terms of the debate, I just have one point which I noticed. We spoke about the blue light and the blue light filter. But it was almost like a cameo. It came and it went away. I was just wanting to understand more discussion with respect to the blue light. I just wanted people to speak more against it for it. I just wanted more engagement on that. But again, the discussions were amazing. We had a lot of fun. And I believe Shobhi would second me on that. We were really impressed with the level of debate that we had over here in this virtual room today. Yes, in fact, everybody spoke so well, Prakhar. And Shobhita Kashmi spoke just for a while, I believe, at the end. So we would have love to hear more of Kashmi. You're a powerful speaker if you're listening to me. So you should thank Shobhita. So, Saan, if you could stop the screen sharing for some time, please. Yes, Shobhi. I wanted to hear more of Kashmi during the beginning. However, she spoke only at the end. So Kashmi, you are too a very powerful speaker. So please participate more. That's all I would say. I mean, the students were brilliant. I mean, we don't have any specific feedback to give. I think it's just that they should keep doing more and more of these debates and keep entertaining judges like us who can come in on a weekend and have a great time with all of you. All right, thank you so much, Mr. Abdullah. And yes, I think even Sugandha ma'am would agree that today's debate was indeed a success, whether you won or not students. I think you all, we also had a wonderful time. Sugandha ma'am, would you like to share your experience today? I completely agree, Frangeli. I think it was a great debate. And as an audience purely, even I felt that maybe we could have got a teeny time a little bit extra for all the speakers. I would have loved to hear them more. I think they've done so much of research, so much of hard work that they've put in. And so yeah, I think I'm a little biased towards the students right now. And I wish they would have got a little bit more time. But having said that, I think it's important to follow protocol and discipline. And that is what we are here to learn. So well done to all of you. Congratulations to the winners. You will soon have your prizes and certificates coming your way. I'm sure you're all waiting for that. Keep participating. It just enriches you so much with every event that you participate in with every platform that you get, which enhances your public speaking skills. Because trust me, public speaking and communication skills are the skills of the 21st century. And they are one of the most important skills set that as a school also, we endeavor to develop in our students. So well done, all of you. My heartfelt thanks to Shubhi and Abdullah for being gracious enough to be our judges for today's event. Thank you so much. And thank you for giving them meaningful insights. And also identifying our best speakers for the day. So great, Madhu, and Anuvi, I'm proud of both of you. And I'm actually proud of all my students. Well done, everybody. Absolutely. Everyone has done a fabulous job. And with that, I would like to announce that this debate, this session comes to an end. Thank you so much to all the participants, to our esteemed judges, to the teachers who are present here to Elpa International School, Skills for Education, and all our viewers who are watching us live on Facebook. Thank you so much. Let me tell you, we are going to have a panel discussion soon that is going to start at 5.30. So stay tuned and we would be right back. Thank you so much, everyone.