While attending an online class at home from Maharashtra, Aniket Bhausaheb Latpate, a first-year student of Kharkiv National Medical University, felt for a moment as if he were in the strife-torn Ukraine. He heard a bomb explosion along with his teacher’s voice and it unnerved him completely.
“When I heard the explosion, it reminded me of those horrifying days when we fled Ukraine amidst gunshots and blasts. Surprisingly, they continued taking the class and didn’t take any break,” Latpate said.
He added, “I don’t know from where he was taking the class as students don’t ask about locations of teachers.”
Many other students share similar experiences since the educational institutions in Ukraine started online classes after March 21. They say that war sirens are normal for about half an hour and normally the teachers go into hiding until the warning sirens stop.
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Shivani Joshi, a first-year student of Ivano-Frankivsk National Medical University, who attends online classes at home from Haldwani in Uttarakhand, says that at least twice a week classes are disrupted due to war sirens and sounds of fighter jets.
“I didn’t hear any sound of explosion or gunshots during the class hours but sirens do go off for about half an hour. During that time, teachers take a break from the online class,” Joshi said.
She added, “Though they don’t tell us the reason for leaving the class yet we can make out that they head towards bunkers or some safe location to hide. They come back to take the class once the sounds of the siren stopped.”
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Joshi is full of praise for her teachers for their courage and determination as she says that teachers are taking a huge risk for the sake of students’ careers.
Though Ivano-Frankivsk city is in the Western part of Ukraine which is comparatively safer and not under Russian attack yet, the risk of airstrike always looms large as the two countries are in a fierce military engagement.
Deepanshu, another student of Ivano-Frankivsk National Medical University, also recounts online class disruption due to alerts issued for the possible airstrike.
Students say that many teachers have shifted to bordering countries like Poland and Hungary for their safety but some of them are still in different parts of Ukraine and continue to teach students amidst the shadow of the ongoing war.
"Till now in our class, no such disruptions have happened but it’s true that the war does have an impact on our online classes. Many of my friends have shared experiences of class disruption,” Harsh Kumar Sahu, a second-year student from Kharkiv National Medical University, said.
He added that his online class is mostly restricted to clearing doubts as they focus on self-studies. “Classes are going on in online platforms like Google Meet, Zoom etc in an asynchronous way. Asynchronous means self-studying the topics and clearing the doubts online with the teacher,” he said.
He added, “The problem is with the practical classes. Some classes are practical-work based especially for third-year and above students. We can study only the theoretical part online.”
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Over 20,000 Indian students, who were in Ukraine to study medicine, were stuck when Russia started its military operations. These students risked their lives and fled to safe locations in neighbouring countries like Poland and Romania. Indian government arranged flights for these students under its evacuation mission, Operation Ganga.
Now, their colleges have started online classes to minimise their academic loss and also to retain them in their respective universities as in the absence of any teaching, students might drop out and get admission to other countries.
