 everybody who is watching us live on Facebook, after a very, very interesting debate session with our students, we are now ready our panel discussion on a very interesting topic, learning in the era of COVID-19 and thereafter, we are fortunate to have some eminent personalities who will be talking about this very relevant topic in the current age. And the best part about this panel is that we have the voices from various communities that are associated with school education and learning. So right from a veteran educationist to a parent and to a student and industry experts, we are going to be looking we are looking forward to this panel, which is going to be an amazing session. Without any further ado, let me introduce the moderator for this panel first. Once again, a warm welcome to Mr. Anant Prasad, the founder and MD at Skills for Education. Anant, like I always say, most of the people at Elpro know you and your organization. But for the because of the love that I have for you and the school for the students for you, let me just quickly introduce you once again to our audiences. Anant is a gold medalist graduate from Mumbai University. And from there on, he went on to pursue his master's in energy economics at the Ivy League Cornell University USA. Thank God for his passion towards skillset orientation in young students, he founded Skills for Education in finest and largest skill based organization. Anant with his stream of trainers have been associated with the school for seven years. And they run various programs which are conceptualized by Anant himself like Enlightenment UN lead emergence in global jig gasa. He is also the brain and curating this entire event quest and is very is instrumental in a lot of initiatives that the school takes in honing these skills for our young learners. So Anant, the platform is all yours. Please introduce our panelists. Thank you so so much, Sugandha ma'am, for your kindness as always for Elpro International Schools, kindness as always. And it is a pleasure to be a part of such an event. And it's absolutely a pleasure to be a part of this panel discussion with a very august gathering online at this juncture. We're going to have a fabulous panel discussion. And the reason it's going to be even better is that we have stakeholders from all sections of the educational ecosystem providing and presenting their views and ensuring that we have one of the most fulfilling experiences. So without much ado, let us first introduce our panelists, because I think it's only fitting you know, their perspectives or the perspectives they're going to come from. So we'll start off with our senior most panelist today, a veteran educationist, who we are absolutely honored to have with us on the panel today. Dr. Sumer Singh, to give you a brief about Sir, Dr. Sumer Singh was the head of daily college and director daily business daily college business school indoor and law and school son are and also served as founder director of the Asian school. Over the years he has served as advisor education in the government of Punjab, as chairman of the Indian Public Schools Conference IPSC, a very prestigious group of schools, some of the oldest and best schools like daily college indoor being a part of it as trustee and advisory on the executive of round square UK, another very great organization, great group of schools, and is currently serving on the boards of world leading schools association, AFS India, Punjab public school, Nava, Uni variety and indoor and indoor management association few is a lot of wonderful organizations to be a part of. He is also an advisor to some of the most famous veteran schools like Mayo College Girls School and many more. He received an honorary doctorate of literature and education from DeMau Fort University UK, a highly experienced professional with a proven record. He brings with him passion and foresight as a mentor. He will be a key contributor bringing about qualitative change in academic excellence. Thank you so much, Dr. Sumer Singh for joining us. Thank you so much, sir. My pleasure and please don't forget to mention I'm also involved with your school, El Pro. Absolutely, absolutely. I think that's also very important for said we are so glad, sir, that you're involved with El Pro International School Chinsword. Thank you so much for mentioning that and we look forward to receiving wonderful insights from you during the panel discussion today. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Let's move on to Dr. Mohit Dube. An alumnus of Australia-India Youth Dialogue, AIYD 2015, a tier two level think tank of young leaders under 40 years from India and Australia. Dr. Mohit Dube has an overall global experience of more than 19 years. He's currently the CEO of Atal Incubation Centre at MIT ADT University Pune. It's a Section 8 company supported by Atal Innovation Mission, AIM, Niti Aayog, Government of India to promote innovation and entrepreneurship across India. Dr. Mohit Dube, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you and glad to be here. Looking forward to the discussions. Thank you. Likewise, so thank you so much. Let's move on to Mr. Aditya Shamsher Malha. Mr. Aditya Malha is the general manager of Double Tree by Hilton Pune, Chinsword, an industry veteran with more than two decades in the business. Mr. Malha has been a part of global brands such as Marriott International, Hyatt Hotels, Oberoi Hotels and Resorts, Starwood Hotels and Resorts, Shangri-La International and Taj Hotels, Resorts and Palaces. Mr. Malha is a parent of a senior student studying in class 12 at Elpro International School. And he's also an alumnus of IMT Ghaziabad, Delhi University and IIM Bangaluru, where he has pursued various degrees right from a BA in honors and economics at Delhi University to an executive education program in strategic management of luxury and lifestyle business at IIM Bengaluru. Thank you so much Aditya sir for joining us. We look forward to your insights today. Thank you. My pleasure. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. We move on to Ms. Swati Mehta. Ms. Swati Mehta is the marketing director at Innovation Entertainment. She is an extremely creative and enthusiastic individual with 10 years of experience in international marketing, communications and event management. Currently she is a hands-on mother to a seven year old boy who as she says keeps her on her toes. She loves spending time with her son during various skillset building activities with him and is actively involved in planning and executing community events at the school. She's based out of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Swati Ma'am is going to provide us very interesting insights with respect to online learning in the era of COVID for a seven year old child and that too not in India but in KL Malaysia. Thank you so much Swati Ma'am for joining us all the way from Malaysia. I hope we are able to do justice to your presence today. Thank you so much Ma'am. Yes, thank you so much for having me and I'm looking forward to the discussion. Alright Pam, let's move on to Ms. Maya Menon with a teaching experience for 10 years. Ms. Maya Menon's cognitive and social growth. She was actively involved in educating the underprivileged children. She believes in combining strong passion for English and writing expertise to motivate and inspire children with an aim to create a fun and challenging learning environment. An extremely affable teacher she often shares with her students the motto of live and let live. Maya Ma'am, thank you so much for joining us and I'm sure you're going to provide the insights of the fun, the trials, the tribulations and the exciting challenges associated with being a teacher in the era of COVID-19. Absolutely and it's such a pleasure to be here and looking forward to this panel discussion. Thank you so much for those kind words too. Thank you. Thank you so much, Maya Ma'am. And last but definitely, definitely not the least, Atharva Sithole. He is a 17 year old enterprising student who is passionate about debating and discussing several geopolitical issues. He is a firm believer in youth leadership and hopes to be the voice of tomorrow. Atharva, from the student fraternity at Elpro International School, here to provide his insights on what it really is to be studying via Microsoft team and Zoom. Atharva, thank you for joining us today. Thank you so much, sir. It's a privilege to be here. All right. So as all of our audience members on Facebook can see, we have a very diverse panel with us and I'm sure they represent every section of the educational ecosystem and their views on this burning question of learning in the era of COVID-19. Without much ado, let's jump into the panel discussion. And if you could start off with Sumer Singh, sir, what are your views? You have seen it all. I mean, I don't think it would be an understatement to say that, you know, you have seen it all over the years. You have seen education transform from purely offline, non-digital learning to a perfect integration of digital learning into educational systems. And today you see only digital learning taking place. So I'm sure you have seen the entire gamut of learning systems that exist. And what is your view on the current situation in COVID-19? Do you think, this is a burning question that a lot of parents actually ask. Do you really think learning is taking place via Zoom or team? I think the topic is very well selected because learning is what you have emphasized or not teaching. And I think this is actually an era, again, a word that you have used, which is a sustained long period. And it is something which is knocked off a year of most students formal education. So it is something that really needs to be looked at in a very serious manner. Learning is definitely taking place. I think learning has been enhanced because students are now not only getting fantastic online services from the schools, but there are service providers who are providing content. There are service providers who are providing platforms and they have all become more technologically savvy. This is giving them the opportunity to explore further beyond what is happening in the academic sphere. And therefore they are getting the kind of well informed general knowledge on topics which interest them. Once this habit forms of being able to explore beyond academics, it is not something that's going to stop. It's going to be something that gives them self-esteem, gives them self-confidence. And I think it is going to lead to a whole higher level of learning taking place in the schools tomorrow. The unfortunate part of course is, and I would like to just mention this, that 67% of our students in the country do not have access to online learning. And this is something which is going to widen the gap. Education is supposed to narrow the gap between the haves and the have-nots, but this is going to in fact widen the gap. And I'm reminded of this story in Himachal Pradesh where a family living in a mudhouse, not being able to afford to be able to give the children even a smartphone to small kids, had to sell their only means of livelihood, a buffalo for 6,000 rupees to get this phone to be shared by both the children. So it's a stark contrast between the haves and the have-nots. The students whom we are talking about are the fortunate ones in the 33%. And even in the 33% remember that many of the students, many of the schools, 50% of the schools in the country are private schools, are using only WhatsApp for online learning. Now that's not really a very satisfying situation. On the other hand, I think this is a great opportunity because whenever the world has gone through any kind of natural or man-made disaster, this is being called an act of God, there is development that takes place, civilization moves ahead, there are solutions found, and the same thing is happening here. The two areas in India which were lagging behind, one was healthcare and the other was education at the school level. And when I say education at the school level, I mean that many of the schools just went in for boring lectures where teachers who were half asleep had not upgraded themselves. Today, both areas have really boomed. Healthcare has boomed and not just healthcare as an industry, but even the air that we breathe and if you look at education, it's going to create a whole lot of people with initiative, entrepreneurs who are going to now blossom. So there is an upside to it. Certainly, sir. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for sharing views on a range of perspectives right from the fact that enhanced learning is taking place. Students are learning new methods of education or are getting exposed to them. You also talked about the unfortunate divide that exists with 67% of India students not having access to online learning. You also talked about other facets of the growth of the education and healthcare industry, new resources coming in. In fact, I would also like to talk about the lack of online learning for close to 67% of India's youth. I would actually like to pose this question to Aditya Malasar and would like you to share your views. So interestingly, very recently, the Gujarat Department of Education and in fact, the Gujarat government passed a very interesting statement and as a parent, I would like to ask you this. The Gujarat government actually stated that online learning is not real learning. So schools should probably not charge fee. Of course, the fee issues and altogether different issue. But I would like to know from you, sir. You have a student in class 12, do you believe that online learning is not learning? And I would be very happy if you provide your honest views on this. First of all, I'll take this opportunity to thank the whole teaching community for what they're doing. Right. If you look at the situation and just step back a couple of months, I would call it again to an invasion, right. The situation was like an invasion, which suddenly hit almost all of humanity. And among the other things that happened, of course, we had the doctors, we had the administration that stepped up. You must understand that teachers stepped up as the first line of defense in many ways. And that took one of the biggest concern of parents like us, you know, that that concern was just taken off our backs because the most important contribution that they made was that they upskilled themselves almost to do that. And, you know, really totally commendable, very, very commendable job by all the teaching community across the world in India with all the constraints that we have spoken about. The most important thing that I feel that my children got was they got continuity. They continued their association and they connect with the institution that's next most important to them and sometimes more important to them than immediate family. That feeling of belongingness continued. You know, while this whole debate about the fees and how much and where they're not going to school, for me, that's a very secondary situation because most important was to see my children engaged, my children engaged with the teachers who they are familiar with. And the learning is not just about, in my view, it's not about what you what you read in textbooks. It's it's a lot of confidence. There's a lot of the soft skills that teachers impart. And, you know, I think I also speak on behalf of the teachers. The teachers were delighted to be in touch with the students. This whole relationship continued. It didn't it didn't snap. It didn't. I mean, we as organizations couldn't ensure that, you know, I was I was working very hard to stay in touch with my team members who were in remote corners of the state and sometimes the country as well. And, you know, really, I take this opportunity and this forum to thank the teachers for what they're doing. And really, the feast part is is an altogether different perspective and learning is definitely going on. Learning is going on in more ways than one. I would also rate as as Dr. Sumer said, you know, the upskilling part, you know, both for teachers and and for students, you know, students are still from the digital era in more ways than one. But look at the teachers and how they quickly adopted, adapted in a completely different skill set or online education is a very different skill set. And I can only imagine how much of effort and and even cost would have gone into getting the teachers to upskill themselves and continue the teaching experience for our for our children. There is never a perfect situation. The crisis had to be dealt with. And I think in crisis, what you do is you put your best foot forward. And really, I'm I'm totally impressed with what's going on in our country. And I think this is an this is shouldn't even be debated. Yes, there is engagement. There is learning. There is familiarity. There is a continuity above everything else. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Aditya Sir, for actually sharing your views. You've provided a very different perspective, the perspective of parent. And I'm glad you've also highlighted the entire effort that teachers who have often been teaching for 30 years using whiteboards, shop dusters and probably a laptop to show a presentation have gone through in order to transition learning altogether with all these different keys, buttons, screen shares and muting students, among other aspects in a very short duration of time. It is definitely a lot of effort. And thank you so much for talking about it. In addition, you talked about a very interesting point continuity in education which is an integral part of the entire process of learning, teaching, soft skill development. In fact, BBC had has come up with a very interesting article that I read a day back. You know, they talked about how lost school time in economic terms might actually affect the United Kingdom for over 65 years. When you talk about it at multiple levels, when you go through all the levels right from upskilling to growth to the middle year's income of students being affected due to a gap year, there are going to be a lot of issues. Now, 65 years is of course an economic concept, but there are definitely going to be impacts of it. The continuity of education being ensured is definitely a value addition for any parent or student. Dr. Mohit Dure from the Atal Education Center, how do you see it? How do you see learning in the era of COVID-19 and the new opportunities that it has given to Atal Incubation Center as well as Anthra Pernios? Right. Thank you, Anansh and thank you, other speakers for sharing their thoughts. But let me put this on record. This country is made up of Gurus. This country is not made up of industrialists. So we need to salute all the teachers who are who may not be called the frontline warriors right now, but they truly are the ones who are supporting those frontline warriors. This is not a small effort to keep a mammoth 1.5 million school children. There are around 15 lakh schools in this country. There are 739 districts in this country. There are 675,000 villages in this country. And despite this force, forced learning that we have been thrown into, please mind it, this is not something that we opted for. None of the parents, none of the teachers, no country opted for this. So when we when we start thinking about the migration from an offline to online learning, you know, we keep on, we keep on discussing about how quickly we moved on to the online bandwagon. But as Dr. Subair Singh was kind of highlighting a tip of an iceberg of the problem that you're losing 67 percent of the country's young, bright children devoid of the learning that they could have gotten the schools. When Zoom was banned from the Ministry of Defence, you know, they put together a challenge from the mighty, you know, the Ministry of Electronics and IT to submit the proposal for India voice conferencing tool. And the challenge I tell you when we started, I put startups to, you know, submit the proposal on that, you were looking at creating a VC tool, which sits on the India stack. What is India stack? It's Jandan, Adhar and mobile. So just look at that whole technology revolution that has happened in this country for in a last decade. If there was no Adhar, we would not have dealt with the situation in the way the gracefully that India is dealing if there was no accounting, if there was no bank accounts that were opened in the last 10 years in this country, people would not have got their debited transfers done. Had there been no penetration of these mobile markets, we would not have seen the response that this country is giving for this whole online learning that we call and mind this, this is despite that 67% of the community that Dr. Somer mentioned about. Now, you talked about the schooling part of it. I come from a hardcore banking background. You know, when we were in the early 2000, when we were building applications for the banking community, there was a term called we want banking, but we don't want banks. So they wanted a banking, but without this huge set of brick and mortar banks, because, you know, it was kind of wasting their times when people used to walk into the bank and they had long queues, you know, the age old people were going, you know, waiting and waiting and the kind of torture they have that they had to undergo just to withdraw their own money. And that's how you started building a lot of these systems to reduce the dependency of the Janta, Amjanta on the banking infrastructure. But that was a well planned activity. You know, the world moved from that brick and mortar banking towards removing the banks and started providing those banking opportunities. And that's why you to build some phenomenal banking systems. And now, you know, you have these mediums who are just the payment banks kind of thing. So that whole two decade of that journey of removing the banks and providing the banking in the hands of the users took two decades. Now, just consider that same thing. Now we are into that similar era where the not just the country, please mind this, and that was an effort where the country wanted to migrate from the bank to a banking kind of environment. Whereas here, the entire world is caught up in this pandemic together. So there is no country in the world which can say we are safe, we are doing OK, we can provide support to the other guys, right? If if if some pandemic has occurred, say in Southeast Asia, you know, other countries were still up and running, so they could support that. But this time, this this pandemic has impacted everyone. And that's where this whole opportunity of building this whole technology layer. And let me not mince any words. The last draft education, the last education policy in this country was rolled out in 2005. And for the last two years, we are still debating in the next draft national education policy. For the other day, we had Dr. Vance Tasturi Rangarajan at our show at MIT ADD and he was fantastic in putting it together, the pieces of the puzzles for this new draft education policy. But look at the implementation, the go-to market that we talk about in the start of world that itself has taken around two and a half years. So if the policy at the government level itself is taking around 15 years to come up, you know, and education, mind it, has been the most under invested domain as well as technology investments are concerned. Even today, if you want, if you ask me the best of the best Indian institutions, if I go and walk up to those data centers or the servers, I can tear apart. I can do ethical hacking right from my lab to whichever institution you tell me. So that's the because that as a focus, we were never trained to create that tech infrastructure to run these systems. You know, the immediate reaction that all of us went into was, oh, boss, how do we migrate these classes from an offline to an online classes kind of more? And that's where, you know, people were kind of figuring out what are the free tools available, the zooms and the teams and the go to meetings and so on and forth. And looks up mentioned about the WhatsApp method of teaching as well. You know, nobody used WhatsApp for teaching learning process. Right. People were using WhatsApp for sharing jokes and we thought the younger generation would increase their attention, attention span with the advent of technology. We were all wrong in the technology front, right? So we are looking at the era when we are saying, how do we take this schooling as for the next decade? How do we build that schooling component when we are looking at that the physical schooling of physical schooling will not be possible for the near foreseeable future. So it's that moment of how do you see that the schooling can be built for next decade or two decades and how do you phase out these school infrastructures from that whole scheme of things? Right, right. Thank you so much, Sir. So I talked about how we can actually compliment the existence of existing schools, infrastructures and slowly transition into the next decades or three, two decades of learning. So thank you so much for actually sharing your views with respect to that. You know, the new innovations that are taking place, you drew analogies to the entire the entire revolution that took place in banking and the revolution that many schools are instituting with respect to learning. Thanks to COVID-19. So thank you so much for sharing your views. Swati ma'am, you are the mother of a seven-year-old child, a child who probably, you know, takes a little bit of time to ensure attention span even in offline schools. How have you seen the entire transition online and especially in Malaysia? Yes, well, I am a mother of a very boisterous seven-year-old son. So he his attention span definitely is very less. And, well, I'm really, really glad and I'm happy that the shift from the physical class to online happened just within a week. And it was, OK, we did have our own learning curve. And I mean, the kids did take a bit of a time. The teachers did take a bit of a time. But that was just one week. And that's commendable on their part. And, you know, I also feel that with the whole pandemic situation, the whole lockdown that came, I think it's it's also a story that will tell to our future generation that, you know, we were hit with the big problem. We didn't stop there. We didn't say, oh, schools are shut. What should we do now? We should stay home. We can't do anything. But we went forward. We took out a solution and we all came up with it. And we all did realize that, OK, there are certain hurdles, but we need to overcome them. We just can't sit down and say, oh, there's no school. So why don't we just do this? And I don't feel like I do something else instead of that. So that I definitely believe was a big learning for our kids. And and yes, I mean, there is a lot of a difference in the physical school and teaching online to a seven-year-old, especially to the primary section, because the attention span is very less and it has to be almost like a homeschooling thing, because we did have eight to three structured class online where we did have Zoom sessions with the teachers, which were almost about 20 to 20 minutes to 40 minutes. But when they were introducing new concepts, concepts in terms of in math and in science, they would do their teaching and they would give us assignments. You can't expect a seven-year-old to just listen to a 20-minute lecture and do with the assignment. So it had to be it's more like a hand-in-hand session with the teacher and the mother or the father sitting with the kid, because the kid cannot take card printouts. He cannot fill things. He cannot take a picture, upload stuff and just send it across his assignments. So I feel that I mean, it definitely must have been hard for parents who both were working and or probably who had more kids. Definitely it has been hard for them. But yeah, it was not like just the just the parents could do one thing. Yeah, it had to be together with teachers and parents. So do you believe it was an enriching experience for you to be a more active stakeholder in the learning process for your seven-year-old child? Because I'm sure you would also be an active participant in ensuring that those assignments were completed. You also had to be, you know, probably party to certain sessions. Did that help you? Do you think that has also, you know? Definitely, definitely. I had to unlearn some concepts that I had learned when I was a kid to teach him something which is a bit more different now. So yeah, that happened and we realized how education has changed in the past 20 years. And you know, I mean, in a primary student's life, we see that they've learned over a period of time. We can see that the gap has changed or maybe they know about counting and things, but we don't know what they're doing on a day-to-day basis. But when I was sitting with my son and I was attending the Zoom classes, I would see, okay, I could see some tangible things that he was doing. He was learning every day. Do you think this is sustainable? If I might ask you, do you think this is sustainable? I'm so sorry to cut you, but do you believe that this is going to be a sustainable outcome? Post-COVID-19, do you think, you know, parents will be able to ensure this even when school transitions offline slash online offline? I think it depends. I cannot say yes or no. There's no fixed answer for it. It depends on the course that you're doing A and B on the age of the child. Right, right, right. Yeah, so probably for a primary section, I think it has to go hand in hand. It cannot be just a physical class or just a Zoom class. And probably somebody who's doing a more technical course are probably like a senior kids. I think they are, of course, more disciplined. They know that there's some sense of commitment. So they know that they have something, they've got to work to do and they would submit it. But I can't expect that kind of work commitment from a seven-year-old. Right, got it. Thank you so much, Swati Ma'am, for providing your views on this. Let's actually talk to the teacher in the panel discussion. Ma'am, I'm sure it's been, you know, a gargantuan task for you. For everybody. I absolutely respect every teacher. You know, there are teachers who have spoken to who have been working for 30 years in the field and all of a sudden they have to move on to Zoom. They were not comfortable probably even using WhatsApp in certain cases. All the way, all the way up to Zoom in a matter of five days, 10 days, 15 days, at max a month, everybody has had to be empowered. You know, this has also involved other facets and, you know, other experiences for teachers. At the end of the day, today teachers are being judged way more than they would have ever been judged in an offline classroom because classes and sessions have now gone to living rooms, to bedrooms, to kitchens. And I am sure there is an added sense of pressure associated with that as well. And I'm sure that, you know, at times, parents might not be able to understand these trials and tribulations. That's just my perspective. Maya ma'am, could you please shed light on your experience? Absolutely. And I'd like to begin by saying that shutting schools down would have been an option. But shutting down learning is definitely not an option. And so we have to keep going as teachers. Now, as you rightly said, as teacher, you know, I'm an old school teacher. I could walk into a class with a textbook and probably start my lesson. But now the situation was different. I had to understand technology. And that was a huge challenge. And as you rightly pointed out, that yes, it was not an easy journey for us. And we had to take up these online classes and actually be teaching from behind the screen. It was a huge challenge. But of course, we decided to take the bull by the horns and we did it. And so the learning goes on uninterrupted. Yes, and as far as judging goes, it is happening probably. But I don't think we need to focus there. As teachers, our focus is still our students. And I'm glad that I have the opportunity to continue teaching. And thanks to the technology that we have provided it, being in the privilege segment, we can say that, yes, it saddens me that, you know, this doesn't reach out to everyone because as a teacher and a mentor, I want that everyone stays educated. But that is not happening. And that's very unfortunate because again, education needs to be seen as a basic need, not a luxury. So that bit always saddens me as a teacher. But at the same time, I'm happy that I'm able to take my online classes. The other thing that's why mental health of students, because in all of this, somewhere we ignore that, what about the mental health of students when we keep online classes? So here also the teachers play a very important role. So what, even if we are online, our children are there, we're visible to them. And I think we need to them, encourage them to give their feedback and ensure that there is that comfort level. And somewhere the mental balance is also maintained because we see around us depression, we see the social isolation times to social distancing, there's social isolation also happening. So these are some of the challenges for us as teachers. And I think we need to take that into effect. And when we walk into a classroom, yes, ensure that that is also taken care of along with the learning. And the learning here, the focus now is all on the skills, not just the scores, because as someone has rightly said, skills is what you need to build, not a resume, because a resume will get you the dream job you want. But the skills is what will keep you in that job. And so now our focus as teachers is to ensure that we impart those skills. And we'll keep doing that. And someday we'll have probably the upper hand also on technology. True ma'am. Ma'am, I'm sure you're already very close to that. Every teacher is close to that. I'm quite sure. I was talking to Sugandha ma'am yesterday about how I saw this entire process with all the schools we associated with Pan India, how everybody started crawling in April, they were walking by May, and now they're running a marathon in July. And I'm sure this is the case with every teacher as well. Learning how to manage a class, learning how to engage a class, learning how to intrigue a class has been a learning process for everybody, absolutely everybody, even us involved in the extracurricular learning of students. So in fact, I'd like to ask the student, everybody is a learner in this process, educationally and even otherwise, but the most evident learner in this process is Atharva Shitole, with us on the panel discussion here today. Atharva, you tell me, what do you think about learning in COVID-19? What has it meant to you? Just share your views, just share your views. I'll leave the question very open-ended. Right, so with special reference to this particular situation, I'm actually reminded of a quote, in the midst of chaos, there's always an opportunity. And this opportunity has led to millions of students and teachers across the world, actually exploring technology and seeing it as a viable alternative to traditional classroom education. I mean, as a student of CVSE, who would have thought in a chemical career, curriculum like CVSE and ICSE could be taught in a virtual medium, right? So as a student who's actually undergoing this particular experience, right? At first, I was extremely curious as to how in this education, how is this traditional mode of education that we are so familiarized with? How will they switch to an online medium? Will the classes still be intriguing? Will the learning outcomes be achieved? And will we be having productive discussions in class? Like we usually do in traditional classrooms. So one sphere that I've felt is most important in this era of online education is self-discipline. The student has to have that minimum self-discipline to pay attention in all of his classes and no matter how much the teacher will try to push the child, it is finally up to the particular child to actually pay attention in class and actually respond to the teacher. I'm really sure my mom will probably feel the same. And one most fear that I've actually talked about is the development of skills. So we are all familiarized with the impartment of education in a very traditional manner, right? But one most fear of learning that I was introduced to, so I'm an avid debater, I'm an avid mono. The fact that innovation could be used in actually organizing online debates, it's absolutely spectacular. You can combine your resources, you can have discussions with students all around the world. And this is something that I was really impressed by. I had no idea that this would probably be able to happen, right? Having your thoughts, discussing your thoughts, sharing your thoughts with students all around the world and actually debating about a lot of issues. And who would have thought like, for instance, this panel discussion. Normally panel discussions, something that are very tangible nature, they happen on the stage, there's a huge audience listening. Who would have thought this particular panel discussion could be happening on a platform like Facebook Live, when we have so many viewers actually viewing this. So in this era of social distancing, I feel that on an education is absolutely very important. And when we talk about the digital divide, the 66% of the students that actually do not have access. So I believe that one way that we can actually tackle this is through investment. So one good thing that I've felt about India is that we have access to very cheap and high quality data services, even cheaper than other developed nations in the world. However, the problem is not the internet itself. It's the accessibility of internet. It's the basic hardware that's required to access the internet. So here, this is where the government will come into play and actually invest. And what is education? If you take it from an economic perspective, it is basically human capital formation. And this digital poverty is standing in the way of India becoming a $5 trillion economic powerhouse by the year 2025. That's what many experts are also saying. So I feel that to tackle this digital divide, investment from the government is the most important. So true, so true, Atharva. Thank you so much for actually shedding light on so many other aspects beyond your learning in a classroom. You talked about soft skill development. You talked about the existence of an entire extracurricular ecosystem with debates, panel discussions taking place online. You talked about human capital. You talked about accessibility. So thank you so much. We've actually heard the opening statements and initial views from all the panelists. I would now like to pose a few questions. When we talk about the concept of online learning, I come from Mumbai. I am in Mumbai at the moment. I've been born and brought up in Mumbai. So I understand certain trials and tribulations associated with dealing with huge populations or staying with huge populations, going into local trains at all points in time. And I can tell you with absolute conviction that when we talk about the concept of social distancing, I firmly believe that it's a very privileged concept. We are very, very fortunate to be able to socially distance and have our own space in our houses to have this kind of a panel discussion. But if you go to Dharavi, I was saying this yesterday during the case study as well, you have six people living in a 12 by 12 child and then you talk about social distancing. I think it's a little difficult. And I think the exact same applies to online learning as well. We talked about certain statistics. We talked about 67% students not having access to online learning. In fact, 24% of households in rural areas are the only section of society who have an internet connection at home. 42% in urban areas. And in fact, these numbers drop further when you go to specific sections of the country. So it is definitely a concept that is still growing. And what I'd actually like to tell you very interestingly is you'd be very surprised to know that when we talk about the whole concept of online learning, when we talk about the entire concept of being ready for pandemic induced education, one of the countries that was most prepared for it is probably a country that most of us have not heard about before. The World Economic Forum mentioned that it's Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone and Kenya are the countries that are most prepared, that were most prepared for pandemic induced learning. And the primary reason for this is that they have faced other epidemics like Ebola. They are facing continuous civil war. So in fact, organized learning in schools has not been possible over sustained periods, especially for girls. So they have a range of systems right from paper-based learning to WhatsApp-based learning, to radio, to television, which is being incorporated. And in fact, they didn't take much time to actually transition into, in fact, some of these countries, unfortunately, and I say unfortunately, did not even need to transition into online learning. They already were learning online. So we are now going to the next question of Beyond COVID-19. I would actually like to ask you, Sumir sir. How do you believe this will actually result in the digitalization of education? I believe that it will probably open out more avenues for more learning, for more students who don't have accessibility even to government schooling. How do you believe that certain facets can be incorporated both into developed and great schools like EIS and other government schools in general? I would first of all just if you allow me to mention what Maya said, that well-being of teachers and well-being of students is something that we must really look at more seriously. I tell you, it's not been such a problem in India. Even though youngsters are social animals, they're not used to being cooped up at home. They're missing their friends. They're wanting to be able to get connected. But the teachers, and I'm involved with teachers in maybe over 100 countries, India has performed much better than outside. And all the reports I'm getting from principals of schools and directors of schools abroad, they're having a major problem getting the teachers to work as hard as they're having to work now and to upgrade themselves. The Indian teachers have done it beautifully. They're working way beyond the number of hours that they used to work. And they're doing it quite willingly. So this is an advantage we have. But yes, it is to answer your question. This is going to continue. More and more people are going to have to have accessibility to digital learning. And it is something which is going to go hand in hand with physical classrooms even after they reopen. But my concern here is that the government, and not just the central government, but the governments in various states, have really shocked us. They have no priority for learning. They have no priority for schools. They have no priority for teachers or for students. I mean, it is really very disappointing to see governments saying that a parent should not pay fees. I mean, look at Gujarat, they are saying, parents should not pay fees, teachers should be given full salaries, children cannot be asked to leave because they don't pay fees. This is a populist move. This is vote politics. And they know that parents are going to go, teachers are going to go, schools are going to go to courts. And they hope that the courts will sort everything out. But where is the direction that they are giving? They are giving a direction to parents, which is going to be harmful to the student in the sense that if I as a student keep hearing my parents talking against the school and the whole education system, how am I going to respect my teachers and my school? Let's face it, 70% of a school's income goes on salaries. Now you either cut those salaries or you remove the teachers. In Haryana alone, from private schools, one like teachers have been told to go home. Their jobs are over. There are a number of schools that are closing down because they can no longer afford to run. So I really am surprised that the government, the politicians are hoping that the courts will sort things out, but they carry on with their populist politics. This is really of concern. What Atharva said, that government should be pumping money into digital learning. They should be giving a wider platform to people who can't afford it. I think that is very important. What he said is absolutely correct. So how do we get the government, they don't even, it's not your lecture. There's no concern shown by any chief minister or the prime minister or the education minister on what is happening in the country. So salute to the private schools, salute to the teachers and salute to the resilience of the students who have actually responded so well to online learning. It's never going to stop now. It's going to go hand in hand with physical classrooms. That's the question you asked me. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for actually shedding light on a lot of aspects of populist measures, populist opinion, populist discourse that is taking place apart from the fact that yes, digital learning is going to get integrated and the effort that our Indian teachers have made in spite of so many trials and tribulations beyond the classroom and naughty students like Atharva. So definitely, definitely sir. Thank you so much for that. In fact, the right to education and different articles of the Indian constitution talk about equity and equality in education. It is to some extent a rather universal perception among the intellectual sections of society that the government has interpreted this as no online learning due to the inability to incorporate it into government schools that goes beyond the populism as well. Dr. Mohit Dube, may I please request you to share your views on this and what do you think the government should be doing? I do know that we are in this situation as well at this point in time. So look, first things first. When the country faced with this whole healthcare crisis, there was a drive from our innovation mission to request all the innovators of this country to put together the proposals for the solutions proposal that we could deploy in three to six months in this country. Suddenly the country realized that around 70 to 80% of the APIs, APIs and active pharmaceutical ingredients based on which any medicine can be made are imported in this country. We realized that around 80% of our health infrastructure, the ventilators, the beds and the sensors and all those health tech equipments, the hardware that is required in our hospitals, around 85% was being imported. And that's why you saw all that drive for Atma Bharata, Atma Bharata Bihar and the drive to make sure that we are able to self-sustaining the longer run in this country. Besides that, we all understand the challenges that Dr. Sumerji nicely pointed out and a lot of the governments are aware of it. But situation is that a country of 1.3 billion, if you look at the kind of, see governments run on tax money, tax pays money and we all complain that we pay our taxes because we are salaried employers, right? But then a lot of businessmen get away with the tax payers kind of thing without paying the due tax that is due with those earners. But if you look at the RBI's today's report, right? It said that the kind of NPS that are going to happen now in this country would take India 20 years back, right? So the capacity to invest from the own generation in the domestic economy, we are still a 2.7 trillion dollar economy, right? And mostly based on import, there is no home market for any of these things. I was looking at this band, 59 apps, people were getting crazy about this whole thing. Please understand all these TikToks of the world, they don't generate any revenue from India. The entire India's market spend on ad spend on the online is only 2 to 3 billion dollars, that's it. Out of total 12 to 13 billion dollar yearly marketing spend, online ad spend on these apps kind of thing is only 2 to 3 billion dollars. So you don't really need to go crazy Gungo about all of these things. So for the government's priority, as we were hearing Dr. Sumer about deploying the resources, there are major issues with regards to the overall education system. Education falls into the concurrent list. It's not the government, it's not just the state government. So it's in the concurrent list. So it needs to be coordinated. And there are around 19 plus boards in this country. NCRT says that every board should follow this standardized curriculum. You start hearing a lot of voices because of that issue that would bring politics. I need to have a 20% of my history, a state's history, then the other state's history and the language issues is all we all know about it. Thank you so much for actually sharing your... Getting into that issues part, let me try to spend a few minutes on what the solution could be. So there are three aspects of three phases the way we look at it. BC and BC is not before Christ, it's before COVID. There was a BC era. There is a DC era, which is during COVID and God knows when we'll see the AC era after COVID. So BC era, we all understand what were the challenges and the offline media was happening. Let me first focus on the DC part of it, during COVID era. Most of this learning is happening online. So there is going to be a phenomenal expenditure on building these solutions from the startups, whether governments fund them or does not fund them. They will still be done during this crisis. Mbib, let me just tell you, Mbib is a startup which does individual personalized learning kind of thing. They just rate 500 CR from reliance. My friend who has simply learned, they have been doing fantastically well. Byjuus have phenomenally gone ahead. So as I said, removing or moving from our school brick and mortar to schooling on an online mode is happening right now in this country. Going forward, three trends that I see. The learning would always be blended, learning going forward. It will never be either online or offline. The second, we all of our student base have been attuned to do a synchronous learning. A teacher goes, walks up into the class and then every student learns the same thing in the class. And you go from chapter one to chapter two, chapter three, chapter four, and you try to close the subject and the syllabus. So that is going to change. The learning is going to be asynchronous in nature. And I think Ata was just kind of touched upon that briefly because I'm a smart student. So why should I wait for the teacher to complete that whole chapter five first to get to the chapter six? If I'm smart enough, I can start learning that chapters as fast as I can. So the pace of learning would start varying. Third part that we see the trend going forward would be the cost of acquiring those skills and the knowledge and the degree that you have to pay. With the advent of technology, it has changed the world over. Entire businesses have reduced the cost. If you have noticed recently, last week only, Google announced 100,000 scholarships, wherein they said students just lock on to the Coursera platform. They just have to pay $500 and Google employees. Google employees would teach them. So a lot of these technology companies, they are getting into this whole game of providing the education for the next generation. And they are treating these two months, eight weeks of certificates equivalent to a four-year degree from any US universities. So what that means is that the cost of acquiring a degree would reduce drastically as we build on the IT infrastructure. True, so thank you so much actually Dr. Molduwe for sharing your views on this. We're actually getting a set of very interesting questions from all our audience on Facebook Live. We have a huge audience watching on Facebook Live as well. Before I go into those questions, we have a little bit of time left. We've had a great discussion, a lot of great views coming from everybody. So we have been to move a little faster now to ensure that we don't fall short on time towards the end as well. I would like to ask Mr. Malla and Ms. Swati Mehta, with respect to learning your senior children learn, what are the facets that you would like to ensure? I'd like to start off with Aditya sir. What would you like continuing, moving forward beyond COVID-19? You know what, like we said, we're just in this COVID era, which is a crisis mode. We did what we could immediately to address the situation that came in front of us. But I think what will need to be done is to get back to the education side of it again. Learning is definitely a continuing process but the whole aspect of education which includes life skills, which includes sports, which includes peer-generated learning is something that will have to be incorporated back at some stage. Sports has a great role to play in the overall development of the child. And one of those things that will need to be, when we're talking about blended learning in some form or the other, we will have to look at that aspect very quickly. The second thing I noticed some best practices coming in from one of the developed countries, you know, and we should definitely not fall into the trap of copying what the developed world is doing to cope with this in our context. But at the same time, you know, what it does is basically it uses one of the abundant resources that our nation has. So what the UK has done is they have recruited the help of fresh graduates or undergraduate students to reach out to junior students to close the gap between the online learning and the personalized coaching, right? And even if you look at the current unemployment situation which, you know, as the last statistic available with us is about 14%, you know, through this COVID crisis. If you were to look at a solution and not wait, I mean, with due respect to Dr. Mohit, do not wait really for the government to do something about it. If you were to kind of recruit the help of these available resources and get them to close this gap in the personalized coaching because that synchronized coaching aspect, like you said, Dr. Dhube, you know, was a different environment. And the children are definitely learning, the concepts are going through, but they have immediate doubts, they have immediate situations, their own imagination that there's a bias of their own that they incorporate while learning. So that needs to be, that bridge I think needs to be closed and we could use the resources available within our country in the current context and skillfully and productively employ those resources to close the education gap. So on one side, I'm talking about the sports of physical activities to prevent long-term damage to their health. And the second side I'm saying is that personal contact closing the gap, you know, as we call it in our business, the last mile connectivity between the teacher and the students is closed by these community-based, you know, teaching experts who are basically fresh graduates or undergraduates for that matter. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Mr. Mala. Really great insights with respect to a lot of different facets of online learning, synchronous learning, learning through private coaching. Swati ma'am, your boisterous seven-year-old child, what do you think he should continue doing online post-COVID-19 on a lighter note? Yeah, one of the reasons why we chose school and not homeschooling is that, you know, the kids when they go to school, it's a very overall growth that they get there. Also the social skills, the emotional skills, and not just education that happens, you know, in the school. So I personally feel that the school, the physical school and online classes have to go hand in hand. It cannot replace one and replace each other and definitely, yeah. All right. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, ma'am. In fact, anybody willing to ask, wanting to ask questions, we have a barrage of questions. So Mayor sir, you have, you're laden with questions, in fact, and I will get to them one by one. All the other panelists as well, there are a lot of different questions that are coming your way. I have a question to ask Atharva, one of our audience members has actually asked this. As a student of class 12, are you not worried that no physical school will hamper your preparation for the board exams, Atharva? All right. With special emphasis on the curriculum, right? The CVSE curriculum, there's both a theory aspect to it as well and a practical aspect as well, as my ma'am knows. So let's take the example for chemistry examination. We both, we have a theory paper as well and we also have to conduct certain practicals, right? So with the current technology that we have at this very instant, I feel that to cover that theory aspect of it, to actually reproduce information on a piece of paper, I feel that that is adequately covered in this technological setup of education. However, what I'm worried about more is the practical aspect of it, where in a student has to conduct those experiments, where in a student has to go up and give a speech. So these particular aspects, I believe that the advent of technology has not encapsulated these particular aspects. Sure, there might be technologies such as virtual reality to actually, you know, incorporate these particular aspects. But again, I feel that the feasibility aspect of that will also come into play. So with respect, again, to re-emphasize, with respect to the theory aspect of it, I feel that it's very adequately covered on this online setup. But I am a bit worried about the practical aspect of it as well. Thank you so much, Atharva, thank you so much. Maya ma'am, an interesting question has come your way and it's very difficult to define this in quantitative terms, but I'm sure you are way more qualified than most of us, apart from Sameer sir, of course, are you convinced as a teacher that children are learning enough on the online platform? Well, a very good question indeed. And this is what I keep questioning myself. Let me tell you that, that are my children learning enough? Because it is very difficult to fathom this, especially when you're sitting on the other side of the screen. And it's very difficult to know whether each child sitting there is learning or whether that child is even there. You know, that's a question also because this is like an online platform you don't have the videos on because half the times probably the cameras are not working or it's out of choice that they keep it off. So it is difficult. It is difficult to know whether the learning is happening but having said that, again, it is up to the teacher to ensure that it happens. So if a teacher is equipped enough, if she is convinced enough that yes, she is going into that classroom to be with her children, which is a replacement right now for a physical classroom setup, then I think it is possible because this situation we are in, we have not come here out of choice, something that's thrown on us. So we have to face it, right? So we can go that extra mile and make it happen. But that question will always remain, yes, I guess. It will always remain a question. Thank you so much. Dr. Sumed Singh, a very interesting question has actually come your way. There is a parent, I believe, who is asking that considering the uncertainty associated with reopening of schools, do you believe that online education should continue and should actually be announced for a specific duration of time at the minimum so that parents can be more prepared, students can be more prepared, teachers can be more prepared? Do you believe that would be a good idea? Let's assume that we have a vaccine by October, but we can also assume that we might not have a vaccine by April. Do you think it's a good idea to announce the rest of the year as an online education year? I don't think anyone knows when this is going to end. It's not gonna end soon, that's for sure. So speculation can be there on various grounds. What I do know is that once the schools reopen, all children are not gonna come back to school. So schools are gonna have to carry on with some online teaching in any case. So it's going to be a phased transition. Parents are not all going to be comfortable sending their kids to schools. We are talking about boarding schools, we are talking about day schools, we are talking about schools in the middle of the cities. So depending on the situation in a particular area, so this is something which we can't predict, but what we as people who keep discussing amongst ourselves, we don't think anything is going to open before November. This is our guess, it's not fact. And so we are all planning according to that. And so the academic programs, because it's very important to have not just academics, but so much else. So I can't answer that question, I wish I could, but I'd be God if I could. Sure sir, I was just putting you in the spot, but I understand that unfortunately, no prime minister can ensure safety and security across the world today. So I mean, for education is to be even, so my saying something of that sort is very difficult. So there are a range of questions that are at least five or six different sets of questions which can be summarized as the same thing in my opinion. There's somebody who's asked whether Dr. Singh is online learning here to say, is online learning a boon or a bane? Do you think students are actually learning? And I believe so you already covered this very effectively through the course of your different statements, but I believe from whatever I can see, a lot of parents actually want that level of probably secondment from your end. So what do you believe? Do you think learning is actually taking place is online learning a boon or a bane? Just for the parents, sir, would you like to reiterate? See, let me tell you that many years ago in the mid 80s, I was given permission by the head of the school as a young teacher to conduct classes for a hundred students of class six and a hundred students of class seven without a classroom, without textbooks, and without a subject teacher. And the kids enjoyed it, the results were excellent because the people examining were the people who were against it. And they did, so, you know, whether it is in the classroom or whether it is outside the classroom, whether it is online learning, that is not the issue. The issue is, does the child want to learn? And if the child wants to learn online learning is a fantastic way of going in this COVID-19 era when there is no other option. Thank you so much, sir. Thank you so much. In fact, if I might just add to that, I actually studied at Cornell University and Zoom was actually being used as a form of learning even back then. Zoom back then was way more primitive than it is today, way, way more primitive. There was nothing like talking two ways at the level that it is taking place today. But yes, you know, online learning was so important for us back at Cornell University. It exposed us to so many wonderful professors, educationists, ways of learning, forms of learning. I was introduced to pedagogy as a concept thanks to online learning. So yes, it might have its limitations. For example, Atharva cannot throw, I'm sorry, Atharva, you're the student here, so I'm taking you as an example. Atharva cannot throw a paper ball at his best friend sitting on the first bench. And yes, there is a lack of human interaction at a physical level that it does exist. But at the same point in time, it does open up a lot of forays. In fact, at a soft-skill level, if I might mention this, I've done a very heavy research on this with a couple of professors at Cornell University. And the entire process of speaking to crowds of people, getting out of the shell becomes way easier via a platform like Zoom or team as compared to speaking live on stage because you have the ability to speak to a crowd while actually still looking at yourself alone. So yes, there are many, many positives associated and Dr. Sumer Singh has really talked about it at a very holistic level as well as specific level, taking an example from his own life back as a teacher doing school, talking about that as well. In fact, Swati ma'am, there's a question that's actually coming your way too. COVID-19 is not going anywhere at least for six to eight months or till we have a vaccine. In simple words, would you want the online classes to continue? And in simple words, actually the parent has been very clear about it. In simple words, do you want them to continue or do you want to just prefer probably putting your child into a couple of classes online outside of school? No personally, definitely. I agree that online classes did make a lot of difference. It creates a structure for the entire day that okay, eight o'clock is my morning time, then I have to do some warmup exercises, then I have maths and I have science, you know, the day follows. Well, I really cannot say because in, I mean, luckily in Malaysia, the schools will be opening up, the physical schools are opening up and things are much better here. So we haven't thought much about it, but we did have online classes for two months and I think definitely it makes more sense to have classes than to just let them be on their own. Thank you so much. In fact, Mr. Malla, somebody has asked you whether you're convinced that your child will be able to perform in our boards as she is not really attending life school. Oh, well, it's a matter of perspective. And I look at it from a slightly different aspect. I look at it from a person who is soon going to be entering the workforce, right? What do I want to see four years from now? I want to see a person who's shown resilience, who's shown fortitude, who's battled through the odds and come out a winner. The marks in the boards are one aspect of it. And I truly mean it when I say this, you know, it might sound cliched, but marks in the board exams are going to reflect only one aspect of the person's abilities and capabilities, but, you know, really how well the person is able to contribute to society and community is good. I think so is, I think so is facing a slight network issue, but... And upon how the programs were going to be far more successful, far more successful. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for your views. Thank you so much. Dr. Dhupade, that is a question that's come to you. And the question is a yes or no question. Interestingly, the parents are very specific about how they want the questions answered. It is a yes or no question. The question is, do you think that the government is doing enough for online learning? Oh, it looks like they're still tagging me as a government person, right? I don't know if I'm right. Let me just say a few words because I think what Atharva may pointed out. Let me first tell you this. See, there's no question about you can debate endlessly whether online is real or offline is real. Is it good, bad? There's no end to that. But what I invite these youngsters like Atharva to find the solutions in this case of crisis. Can we be the solution provider? Can we on the part that after 20 years down the line, can these youngsters say I was part of the problem that was forced upon me, but I came out victorious as a solution provider. And just to highlight to what he mentioned as a problem of practical aspects. This is given to us that we are forced to sit in our houses. But there is a concept of virtual labs. Eight IITs and some other institutions of this country have come together and created virtual labs. So you can actually rip apart a basic physical, practical and go step by step, learn from chemistry step by step. But then what I'm saying is that's for the higher education. These kids who are still in schools, I'm saying that they can learn the tricks of creating these small practicals themselves and can offer an alternate solution that the world can look at how these youngsters of this country can provide solution during this crisis also. So online, offline, let's not get into that debate. Whatever has happened to us has happened. Can we assemble our resources together? Can we put our brains to that? And can we be known as the solution provider to come up, to take this whole education paradigm to a new level when the world starts settling down? And we can say that our kids provided this solution despite all those challenges. Thank you so much, Dr. Rubay. Thank you so much. We have had a range of very interesting questions for all members of the panel. And we have had very interesting discussions covering so many different perspectives right from the perspective of continuity in education, to accessibility of education, to building human capital, to the economic divide and the educational divide. This is actually a new concept, which we will probably study in economics books probably 10 years down the line. It's gonna take 10 years probably to actually understand the tangible effect that a gap in a year of education has caused to the Indian economy because it is definitely unfortunately going to be very big. All of us have been able to address the importance of online learning during the era of COVID-19 and have also been able to appreciate certain facets which can be continued moving forward. Mr. Mullah, interestingly talked about the entire aspect of dealing with adversity for students, making them more life ready. Interestingly, the Department of Industrial Planning and Promotion states that only 27% of India's graduates are considered employable in spite of having first-class degrees all over the place and the absence of soft skills is probably one of the primary reasons for this. I hope that the era of COVID-19 has made students more life ready. Maya Ma'am has of course so succinctly mentioned how teachers have become so digitally education ready. I think at this point in time, every teacher in India deserves a huge round of applause. They have had to face a lot of issues. Of course, Elpro International School, Chinswad is a great school and I know everything that they do for teachers and there are many other schools of this sort. A lot of IPSE schools that Sumer Singh Sir is also associated with, I'm sure. But there are so many schools across India. In fact, schools that I know have probably slashed off close to 70% salaries, 90% salaries and teachers are working all over the place over time with probably small houses at times having to accommodate places, finding that small corner where they can conduct a class for a huge group of students, keeping them under control, managing household chores in the absence of external help. It's really been a very, very troublesome period for teachers, for nurses. All of these people are frontline workers and I believe that irrespective of online learning or no online learning, it's very important to understand the sacrifices that they are making financially, personally and at times even with respect to their self-respect to make sure that learning is continuing. So it's I think a very important take away from COVID-19. The fact that teachers are always going to be there, learning is always going to be there. And I love Zig Zig learn a very interesting statement that he made when I was actually making my notes for this panel discussion is that he said that if you're not willing to learn, no one can help you. But if you're determined to learn, no one can stop you. No one can stop you. And I am sure this applies to so many wonderful students like Atharva, Swati Ma'am's boisterous seven-year-old child and a range of other students all across the country who actually are dying to go back to classrooms but also understand that in the absence of a live classroom, we need to make sure a live Zoom session is the most holistic learning experience. From my perspective, as an educationist myself working in the field of soft-skill development, I have seen how students have adapted, how my own trainers have adapted, how I have adapted, how everybody across the ecosystem is adapting, parents are adapting to learning. And I'm sure that one of the worst things that we can do as a population who has faced the worst pandemic in the 2000s is the worst thing that we can do is probably not take away the positive facets from COVID-19. It is a bubble which will unfortunately, which will fortunately, I hope, I'm so sorry. It's a bubble which I fortunately, I hope no other generation has to see at least for the next 500 years. But it has opened up so many opportunities. Dr. Dubey talked about those opportunities with respect to digital learning, analogous to the banking boom, the digital banking boom. And I hope that we make the most of this. I know schools are going to make the most of this. A lot of schools have invested a lot of resource into making things work. So I would like to wish everybody all the very best. And I hope COVID-19 ends very soon. And we go into the beyond COVID-19 era at the earliest. A lot of vaccines, a lot of, there's the vaccine war, like there was a war for in the first atom bomb with the Manhattan project prior to World War II, during World War II. I hope that we are able to get this vaccine at the earliest, whether it's Oxford or, Bharat bio-cam or anybody else, because I like every other teacher, I'm longing to actually go back and actually make sure that I have that direct interaction with students in a classroom. Dr. Sumir Singh has gone through all eras of education at this point in time in contemporary India. And I'm sure he would also second the same thing. And it is my honest request as well to government departments to be supportive. This is a very, very troublesome period for every teacher, for every student, for every parent. And at this point in time, it's very important to help with the process of learning, the process of education. So thank you so much, everyone. And I would like to extend a vote of thanks to every member of today's panel discussion. I would have loved to keep this discussion going, but I believe that Sugandha ma'am has mentioned that there are certain limitations. And of course, we have already extended the session beyond 15 minutes for 15 minutes more. And it's been a very wonderful discussion. Thank you so much, Maya ma'am, for providing your views as a teacher. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me here. And just one thing that I want to convey that at least during this pandemic time, we don't need to pressurize our children. Parents, please don't do that. There's no need to take any kind of pressure or pass on any pressure to anyone. Let's all be in a very happy space where happy learning is happening. That's all I want to say. Thank you so much, Dr. Sumer Singh. Thank you so much for joining us today, sir. Having views of a veteran educationist like you have, has also really provided a lot of food for thought to parents. So you would be amazed with the number of questions that have come your way. I've just tried to summarize all of them. May I make one statement? Please, please, sir, please comment. Okay, I just want to remind parents that if you look at the independent studies done by Harvard University, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, they talk about your success in career depends 75 to 80% on your soft skills. So that is something which you can easily develop at home. Concentrate on that because those are very important for the future of your child. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, sir. Thank you so much, Dr. Dubey, for joining us. Providing us with a world view from the perspective of technology, development, incubation, and of course, human capital. Thank you so much, sir. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. It was lovely having, you know, being learning so much here with the esteemed panelists and especially the youngsters. I just appealed to them that enough damage has been done to this country. Now it's your turn to provide the solutions, not just for 1.3 billion people, but for the entire community, which is around 7 billion people. Please step up to the place and this country is there behind you. The mentors, all these mentors on the panels are there to support you with any kind of guidance that you need. These are some super mentors that are available to you. So please rise up to the occasion and provide solutions for the 7 billion people to help the community. Thank you. Thank you so much, Dr. Dubey. Mr. Malha, thank you so much for joining us. Such wonderful perspectives as a parent, as a professional. You've provided us. You've talked about, you know, burning issues. You've gone beyond, you know, the picture of, you know, your daughter actually attending sessions at EIS. You've talked about the entire aspect of continuity. You've talked about so many other aspects which are so important to really address. Thank you so much, Mr. Malha, for joining us. My pleasure, Tariq. Thank you. Thank you so much, Swati ma'am. Thank you so much for sharing your views all the way from Malaysia, talking about how it was to, you know, be a part of the entire process of education at more direct levels with your seven-year-old child and, you know, helping him out with a few assignments that you probably have as well. I'm sure it's been an enriching, enhancing, and engaging experience for you. I just wanted to say that we are a generation of almost like a bulldozer parent where we try to remove all the obstacles for our kids so that the kids can have the best of the things possible. Let's not do that anymore. And let's not do the work for them. Let them also learn more and not stress about if they're learning enough through the process. This is also kind of a learning surviving in a pandemic. Absolutely, absolutely. In fact, there was a very interesting statement that I read by one of my favorite educationists, Henry Juru. I love the educationist, one of the most path-breaking educationists. And he stated in very literal terms, he said the biggest gift that a parent can give to his child or her child is to make sure that the parent is not the child's biggest punishment. That's very true. Right, so thank you so much for that. Atharva, I think you have impressed everybody on the panel. You've impressed all audience members with your ability to provide such a worldview, such a balanced view. Thank you so much for joining us, Atharva. And I'm sure that a very bright future beckons. Thank you so much. I would just like to end with a quote by Nelson Mandela. Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. And I'm pretty sure the youth of today will change the world tomorrow. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Atharva. And I need to give a big shout out. I need to actually extend my vote of thanks to the school, the management of the school, Sugandha ma'am, Amrita ma'am, everybody else who's been a very active process of making equest reality. To be honest, there are not many schools in India who take the risk of having a discussion on online learning with parents, students, teachers, and a range of other educationists today. It's a very sensitive topic all over the place. Whether you talk about fee or you talk about, whether it's actually learning, taking place, and government is not doing too many favors to any school. It's probably doing a number on each one of them at this point in time as well. So to be able to have that level of conviction in your services, in your ability to deliver, via the online platforms and to have the confidence that you and your fraternity, including teachers, students, parents is running in this phase of COVID-19. And to be able to have this honest discussion where we have talked about a lot of burning concepts, a lot of burning concepts, you have a parent on the panel as well. You have a student on the panel as well. And I know the student is really outspoken. So to be able to actually do this is something that you definitely deserve a lot of credit for. And I'm sure that this is going to further reinforce the level of confidence you have in your pedagogy. So thank you so much, Sudhanda ma'am, for having given me the opportunity to be the moderator for this session. And I'd like to thank all members of the audience. My sincerest apologies if we have not been able to address questions. Unfortunately, all of these things are timed and time and time wait for no one. I hope it moves fast with respect to a vaccine as well. Sudhanda ma'am, would you like to say something on a parting note? Thank you Anansh for moderating this panel. And my heartfelt gratitude to all the panelists for taking out time and joining us for today's discussion. Like Anansh said, it was not a very easy thing to get all the stakeholders of school learning and education come together and share their views. And I'm so glad we didn't have arguments in the panel, but thank you everybody for being so gracious and so kind and sharing your honest perspectives on what we feel about online learning. Thank you so much. Thank you Sudhanda. Thank you for having us. Thank you Anansh, thank you Sudhanda. Thank you Sumerji, thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thank you, have a good day everybody. Thank you. And thank you audiences for watching us and putting in your questions. It really means a lot. Thank you, have a good day everyone.