Educational Response Toward Covid-19 Pandemic: Perception, Problems and Prospects; A Bangladeshi Context

Abstract

This study set out to unearth the perception regarding the effectiveness of online education, problems and future prospects of online education according to the teachers and students of Higher education institutions of Bangladesh during the covid-19 pandemic situation. The present study is conducted in two stages. The first stage was examining the existing literature on Education’s (Teaching-Learning) response during the Covid-19 pandemic situation; and in phase 2, one structured questionnaire was administered to elicit responses from students from two different universities in Bangladesh and one semi-structured questionnaire were administered to bring forth responses from teachers of different higher education institutions of Bangladesh. random sampling and the snowball technique were used to develop the sample of 118 respondents with a response rate of 44.03 percent. Teachers and students both have positive attitude toward online education during pandemic situation mostly because of safety issue. Positive relationship is found between the level of proficiency of teaching technology and the level of comfort in online teachings among teachers of higher education. Moreover, there are multiple issues at hand to resolve and move forward such as: developing digital proficiency of both teachers and students, ensuring better students’ engagement, employing effective and authentic evaluation process, remodeling pedagogy and learning instruments, ensuring quality internet facility at affordable price for all the concerned stakeholders. Current study would help the education practitioners to focus on improving the current issues and thus making the policy regarding teaching during and after pandemic situation owing to the fact that, evidences suggest that, world’s education practice is moving toward blended learning (a combination of online and offline, on campus learning). Whereas, several studies have been carried out to reveal the prospects and challenges in the field of education during Covid-19 pandemic. The currents study synthesizes the major contributions and highlights the issues regarding the educational response toward Covid-19 Pandemic around the world. Moreover, this study reveals the problems and prospects of online education during and post Covid-19 era in a third world like Bangladesh.