Paradigm Shift in Learning and Teaching: Problems Faced by the Students to Attend Online Classes during Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Covid-19 is the global crisis with the wide spreading and creating chaos on the health of people, economy and also tremendous impact on education due to the sudden closure of universities, colleges, and schools. It is an unexpected pandemic to the world. India is the second highest infected country. The education system is adversely affected by this pandemic and disrupted the routine in India. During this pandemic, the universities and the colleges shifted their mode of delivery to the online education system to save the academic year of the students. It is a new system for Indian students, particularly for rural and tribal students. The aim of the present study is to understand the problems faced by the students to attend the online classes. It covered three State students via Andhra Pradesh, Assam and Mizoram pursuing their graduate and postgraduate courses. It is found that 79.8 percent of the respondents faced problems attending online classes. The major problem reported 40.7 percent is accessibility and internet speed. 56.5 percent reported that there is very little student-teacher interaction in online classes. Further, 43.1 percent of respondents Stated that their teachers used the power-point presentation method and 38.1 percent of respondents reported that their teachers used the lecture method. It is suggested that the universities and colleges should be provided with the technical skills to attend online learning classes on different devices like mobiles, laptops, and tablets. Governments should take initiative with telephone network companies to bring new schemes to provide free internet data and free smartphones to the students based on their course of study.