Tag Archives: Higher Education

Covid-19 decimated supply chains, economic systems, and close social interactions. It also had crippling effects on educational institutions and systems worldwide. For an education-driven economy like India’s that produces the highest number of Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics (STEM) graduates worldwide, the situation is particularly dire. One of the fundamental components of these courses is laboratory experiments, which may become difficult, if not impossible to conduct safely in absence of a vaccine for Covid-19. In this article we outline a number of free, open-source, curated, verified, physics-based simulation resources that can be used to design virtual lab courses for introductory or advanced undergraduate physics curricula.

Examinations need to be decentralized, with teachers given autonomy to frame syllabi that would be based on their experiences with the student body of their institutions, independent of the University Grants Commission (UGC). It is time the UGC realized that a centralized system of education cannot work, especially in the middle of a global crisis.