Online Education System during the COVID-19 Pandemic Situation in Bangladesh

The country became locked down as well as educational institutions on 17th March 2020 [1]. So, that the education system broke down. Then the University Grants Commission (UGC) decided to continue online education within the universities. After that the primary, secondary and higher secondary online education started. At first UGC asked private universities to stop assigning their current students grades through online exams and assessment, and to stop enrolling new students. But Association of Private Universities of Bangladesh (APUB) was requesting the UGC to allow them to conduct all educational activities online.

A person who participated in the meeting told Prothom Alo that the private universities are mainly facing problems with the ongoing semester. They will now be able to run the current semester online by following some directives of UGC.

At the end of the meeting, education minister Dipu Moni emphasised most on ensuring academic activities online. She also urged public universities and even the colleges under the National University to consider running academic activities online. Sheikh Kabir Hossain, president of APUB and one of the participants of the meeting, told Prothom Alo that the education minister said all academic activities would go online.

The procedure would be determined upon discussion with UGC, he added [2].

Materials used in Bangladesh for online teaching during COVID-19

• Zoom application and BdREN: During COVID-19 pandemic situation the online education started by using Zoom application. Which is very useful for video, audio, file sharing, YouTube video sharing, whiteboard sharing etc. [3]. In Bangladesh the official Zoom online education system is conducted by BdREN. Through the BdREN the teachers and students can continue more than 180 minutes, which is not possible to continue more than 40 minutes without using BdREN [4]
• Google Classroom: Teachers use Google classroom in their official / personal Gmail account and then add the students in that classroom. In this class the students can get their necessary materials like class notes as well as lecture videos. It’s helpful for those students who missed the class because of poor internet connection [5].
• Android Mobile: This is a very useful instrument for the online education system both for teachers and students.

We use five common questions, which are related to the online education system. The questions are:

• Does online education helpful during COVID-19 pandemic situation?
• Do you think that you have learnt at least 50% through this online platform?
• Do you think that Zoom app is appropriate for online education?
• Are you feeling comfortable with this online platform?
• Do you like to continue this online education, if this pandemic situation will extend?

By using these questions in a google form we share it to students of different renowned engineering students in Bangladesh, who carried out their online academic curriculum during this COVID-19 pandemic situation. 300 students participate and respond to their feedback.

Here I’m going to show you about the outcome which we have got from 300 students.

a. Outcome from the first question.

From the students’ response we can see that 79.5% of students agreed with online education and 20.5% of students didn’t agree. [Note: here Blue colour (1) means “yes” and Red colour (0) means “no”] (Figure 1).

Figure 1:

b. Outcome from the second question.

From the students’ response we can see that 77.1% of students agreed with online education and 22.9% of students didn’t agree. [Note: here Blue colour (1) means “yes” and Red colour (0) means “no”] (Figure 2).

Figure 2:

c. Outcome from the third question.

From the students’ response we can see that 88% of students agreed with the online education and 12% of students didn’t agree. [Note: here Blue colour (1) means “yes” and Red colour (0) means “no”] (Figure 3).

Figure 3:

d. Outcome from fourth question.

From the students’ response we can see that 63.9% of students agreed with online education and 36.1% of students didn’t agree. [Note: here Blue colour (1) means “yes” and Red colour (0) means “no”] (Figure 4).

Figure 4:

e. Outcome from the fifth question.

From the students’ response we can see that 72.3% of students agreed with online education and 27.7% of students didn’t agree. [Note: here Blue colour (1) means “yes” and Red colour (0) means “no”] (Figure 5).

Figure 5:

Advantages

During this pandemic situation when people are stuck in their house, distance learning is very important for this time. So, the online education system plays an important role for distance learning [10]. Always staying inside the house is also very boring. It affects the human mind. So, if the students continue their education system with their classmates, they can feel relaxed and comfortable [11].

Disadvantages

We are living in a developing country, that’s why it’s quite impossible to get 3G as well as 4G networking systems throughout the country. Maximum organisations use the BdREN Zoom platform for their online education system [12]. Sometimes the zoom app doesn’t work properly due to the slow networking system. Some poor students can’t buy the internet package regularly and some of them do not have good quality electronic devices. These suffer them much. Through the online system the students and teachers can’t make good interaction between them, and the teachers can’t monitor the students properly.

Future Scopes

Here in Bangladesh online the university and some English medium schools in the capital and others city only use this online platform for their educational purpose. But the secondary and higher secondary schools and colleges can take this online platform and teach the students. The village teachers and students, who are totally out of this online platform system, are needed to give them training. We don’t know how long this pandemic situation will stay. So, we have to adapt with the modern online education system.

We all know that there are no unmixed blessings on the earth and the online education system is one of them. We need time to come up with this new education system, but we have to do this. Because it’s been two years maximum, students in our country are out of the education system. They stay at home and sometimes a few of them involve themselves with the corruption. So now it’s the basic need of our nation to educate the students in the proper way and enlighten them with the education. We must never forget that education is the backbone of a nation. If we all try this in every educational institution, I hope the nation will get a good outcome..

1. https://www.thedailystar.net/online/news/online-education-bangladesh-perspective-challenges-and-way-forward-1937625
2. https://en.prothomalo.com/youth/private-universities-can-run-academic-activities-online-ugc
3. https://elearningindustry.com/rethinking-digitalization-education-system-in-bangladesh
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