A Critical Analysis of COVID 19 Pandemic’s Effect on Education System in India

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic in our country is a part of the worldwide pandemic of corona virus disease which is caused by “Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2” or SARS-COV-2. The first case of COVID-19 in India, which originated from China, was reported on Thursday, 30th January 2020. India currently has the largest number of confirmed cases in Asia, and has the second-highest number of confirmed cases in the world after the United States of America, with almost more than 3 crores reported cases of COVID-19 infection, more than 4 lakhs deaths and more than 3 crores discharged after treatment. As the disease crept in our lives the Government of India declared a series of lockdown when several institutions and offices were to shut down, including school, colleges and universities. It was the first time in our history when a disease that turned into pandemic forced to stop and changed our lives to such an extent. One of the major impacts of it has been on the education system of our nation and its vulnerable infrastructure that till now was offline was forced to stop and find an alternative. The forced choice we were only left with is off course resorting to online mode of teaching and learning which hadn’t happened in the past. But since as we are accustomed to traditional modes of teaching and learning process, the virgin way of online mode of teaching and learning besides other unconventional systems/methods, has posed certain difficulties and challenges before the education system of India. Thus, this paper attempts to cover up different facets and dimensions regarding challenges of teaching and learning in this pandemic era and its large scale effects on our education system in India.