Ankit Sanan, Co-Founder of Inkclick is an Electronics Engineer & Professional Aviator. His experience in Aviation helped him to understand the need for Global Learning from users of various Countries. His vision is to create a Social Network for Students, Parents & Mentors to measure and review the progress that transpired in every quarter of learning. To be updated with today’s unending evolving world is a necessity for everyone, hence, to educate users from all walks of life on advancements in Education & Careers and allow young users to identify & their strengths while growing is our main objective.
COVID-19 has brought an unprecedented change and a once-in-a-lifetime experience for people across the globe. The pandemic has affected nearly every aspect of our lives and has demanded abrupt changes in the status quo. Like several other sectors, the education sector was among the most severely impacted, schools, colleges and universities were shut down overnight due to lockdown which caused a major interruption in the academic year and brought a big gap in the learning of students and forced them to stay at home especially in a country like India who has one of the largest student populations in the world, approximately 315 million. According to UNICEF, over 1.5 million schools were closed due to the COVID-19 wave across the country that directly impacted students and teachers.
As the saying goes, ‘Necessity is the mother of all inventions. As a result, the educational system has changed and reinvented itself with innovative ideas to meet the new government restrictions about safety and staying at home. Most schools and educational institutions moved to conduct online classes for their students to assist them in continuing their education.
Though, even before COVID-19, education technology was seeing rapid expansion and adoption, with worldwide edtech investments reaching US$18.66 billion in 2019 and the whole industry for online education expected to reach $350 billion by 2025. Since COVID-19, there has been a considerable increase in the utilisation of language apps, virtual tutoring, video conferencing tools, and online learning software to help students learn using online platforms.
Millions of students today are moving towards online learning and are now enrolled in at least one online course due to the flexibility and benefits virtual learning bring to the table. Online education comes in so many shapes and sizes. Students have an endless amount of opportunities to learn new things through online learning. It is in fact in today’s time is considered big support in a child’s growth and it is a favourable proposition to contribute to mental health or wellness and growth of a student.
Children, like adults, have emotional needs that parents sometimes fail to recognise or understand, resulting in unexplained worry that can reflect itself in their personality, leading to long-term concerns with attachment patterns and self-esteem. The pandemic has also taken a toll on the emotional health of children due to lack of social interactions and limited understanding of the restrictions imposed on them, it has also radically altered conventional routines now that the entire family is confined indoors all the time. As per the Indian Psychiatry Society, there was a hike of about 20% in the number of mental illness cases at the end of March 2020. Since 2020, the situation has become even worse. Students have been going through depressive thoughts, behavioural and emotional disorders, which have severely impacted their growth parameters and their overall development.
Mental health as a concept is now at the forefront for all students, parents and teachers especially in Tier 1 cities and Tier 2&3 to follow suit because our country has finally realised that there are some mental issues that people go through which affects their growth and development. They have started talking about the issues that hamper their mental wellbeing online. New Careers and Job proposition alongside growth in the country has lead people to understand how mental health is of paramount importance for an individual’s holistic development.
To create a holistic growth ecosystem for students, Inkclick, an online social learning platform providing a free community, consolidated space to students for their holistic growth and learning needs. Bearing the importance of holistic wellness for the overall development of students in their journey towards success, Inkclick has onboarded several mental wellness centres to offer growth and comprehensive mental health support to students, parents and educators. The platform aims at providing a completely fresh outlook for the holistic development of students while enhancing their talents in the age of digitalization.
On this platform students can easily avail free webinars, career talks, recorded and live courses around various aspects of mental wellbeing while getting a chance to book a free consultation with wellness experts. All the stakeholders intend to transform the base of education, imparting knowledge by focusing on the mental wellness of students.
Final Words:
Inkclick, India’s first online learning and social networking platform is trying to revolutionize the education system where equal importance is given to mental wellbeing, helping students, parents and teachers build a healthy mindset so that they can take up any life challenges in their journey of success.