E-learning, a remedy against environmental pollution

B D Narayankar

YOU WAKE up in the morning and rush to your school. In this process, have you ever thought what damage you have done to the mother earth - because you use the school bus, it emits tons of carbon in the air; you use paper, which comes to you after pulling down millions of bamboo trees. These are the dangers that the classical mode of educational system (schools and colleges) dish out to mankind. So, what’s the way out?

One of the most effective ways to reduce carbon footprints is online education. In fact, Stockholm Environmental Institute (SEI) and Britain’s Open University Design Innovation Group (DIG) have suggested online education as a remedy against environmental pollution.

Though little research has been done on the topic, SEI and DIG had released some relevant studies in 2005. Their work quantifies the environmental impact of the higher education sector and lauds the ’potential of the Internet and other e-learning methods to radically reduce energy consumption and emissions’.

The key finding of the UK study was that distance learning courses consumed nearly 90 per cent less energy and produced 85 per cent fewer carbon-dioxide emissions than conventional campus university courses.

By logging on, instead of traveling to the age-old campuses, you are contributing towards making your surroundings or the world, greener and verdant.

Virtual education, unlike the distance education, is more accessible to students, without disturbing the ecological balance.

Students are no longer limited to college campuses within a 50-mile radius. The online format offers access to countless specialty programmes globally by building a global community.

One such platform making accessible best of the courses online and contributing towards the ’Go Green’ movement is WiZiQ, which has made available a number of preparatory courses like Common Entrance Test (CET), Common Aptitude Test (CAT), Chartered Accountant (CA) and Indian Administrative Services (IAS) for students to learn while conserving resources.

According to a spokesperson, WiZiQ is an online learning platform focused on empowering teachers and education service providers to reach out to students and make learning more effective over the Internet.

It boasts of a free virtual classroom that is equipped with live audio-video communication, chat, content sharing and session recording capabilities.