Impact of Pandemic on Distance/Online Education

Online learning is becoming a common way to earn a degree at a distance. This learning method facilitates people to learn and develop skills from anywhere. But, what happens when a pandemic erupts or when people can't get to the courses?

Many universities and colleges use technology such as online lectures, pre-recorded videos, streaming, and other interactive activities in order to allow all learners easy access to the course material, but this may not be enough during extreme cases of pandemics.

In India, around 250 million students were affected due to school/college closures at the onset of lockdown induced by COVID-19. The pandemic posed several challenges in public and private schools/colleges which included an expected rise in dropouts, learning losses, and an increase in the digital divide. The pandemic also called into question the readiness of the systems, including teachers to address such a crisis and the sustainability of private schools/colleges. However, COVID-19 also acted as a catalyst for digital adoption in education.

Even though online education has many bad aspects, there are many good aspects too. Due to the global pandemic, online education has fallen to the most basic level- schools and colleges. For the students who have long-distance commutes, they find it a more flexible and easier option as education is reaching them and not vice versa.

For the working groups who wish to continue their education or learn something new, online education is a good option for them. It is more flexible, can adjust to their existing schedules and they can complete the assignments without sacrificing hours from their existing jobs or important chores of their household.

Compared to the expenses of colleges, online education is more affordable and is helpful for aspirants who wish to go to college but couldn’t. Also, they can continue earning while gaining the education they needed.

Some key benefits of Distance education are listed below:

• Saving extra expenses- with the implementation of online education, we will be able to save the expenses of travel, lodging, and boarding and these fee reductions will mean lower fees for the online classes.
• No limitation- in contrast to physical classrooms, digital classrooms don’t have limitations.
• Flexibility- In physical classrooms, there’s a limitation to the local population of the students but if we talk about digital classrooms, faculties will be able to address not just the local population but also the global population. Even in terms of faculty, we will not be confined and will be able to hire an expert professionals from around the globe.
• Nature friendly- by going digital, we are actually doing the earth a favor. Trees are used in the construction of paper, so if there would be less production of textbooks, the number of cutting down of trees will significantly decrease.
• Time saver- traditional methods of teaching include years of studies and months of waiting for the final examination results but with the digital implementation of the classes we are getting the content on spot, can give examinations with the ease of sitting at home, and can get the results instantly (or within few days) on our smartphones and laptops which is less stressful and saves a lot of time.

If you want to know more about Distance/Online Education visit SimpliDistance.

You can find all the colleges in India that offer Distance/Online Programs on SimpliDistance with all their detailed information like course overview, curriculum, fees, etc.

Find out the Top Distance MBA Colleges in India.