Dr Amita Dhawan, assistant professor at Sant Baba Bhag Singh University, says students are increasingly relying on PDFs over library books.
Owing to technological benefactions, recent changes in the perspectives of students can be seen with respect to receiving education. Neither they prefer to go to the classes nor sit in the library to read and spend time in adoring wisdom of writers for what they penned out. They rely more on PDF culture which is a source of limited knowledge that is prepared by professors amid their busy schedules of performing academic as well as non-academic work.
The outcome of such changes along with overall impact of technology on students is noteworthy. Assets of online education and advent of digital learning platform can never be ignored but not at the cost of offline-libraries. Students hardly bother to bring their text books in the class. Their prime concern rests on focusing attention to the limited components and receiving defined marks.
The entire mind-set of the students, thereby, younger generation has got changed due to meticulous attention to distractive mediums such as Facebook, Instagram, reels and so on.
They must understand that reading a book makes them less exhaustive psychologically, mentally and physically in comparison to the online platform-medium of studying through e-books though they can be downloaded and printed. While going to the library, they are not only exposed to inter-personal skills but students also get a peace of mind which is missing in learning through technology. This is the sharp difference in the two systems of acquiring education.
Reading maketh a full man is a well-known nugget said by a renowned essayist of the nineteenth century, Sir Francis Bacon. Libraries are good source of happiness. These instils wisdom that actually comes with learning through reading. Another serious concern that has cropped up is students study and learn only before exams, in fact a day before the exam. It is really surprising to see that students do not realise the worth of making a timetable, a schedule to manage time for all the academic subjects and other tasks.
The NEP 2020, thankfully, can be of significant help in bringing back students to the classrooms to some extent apart from the efforts put in by the institutions and universities by skilfully including in the curriculum vocational and skill-based subjects that are known for their multi-disciplinary approach.
Introducing culture heritage to the student by introducing Indian knowledge system is another step that will be helpful in making students get to know about the traditional system of education along with the classical books they ought to consider for reading be it Vedas, Upvedas, Vedangas, Ramayana, Upanishads or Puranas. The serenity of these texts would imbibe in them invaluable insights to face modern-day challenges across difference realms. Hopefully, with changes in the behaviour of young students, a calm, composed and wise society may come up giving benefit to all who are part of it.
