Problems and Prospects of Online Teaching and Learning at the Tertiary Level in Bangladesh

Abstract

The year 2020 was very challenging and pathetic due to the worldwide pandemic COVID-19. This pandemic caused a total halt to normal life. This was not only a medical issue, rather than sectors like the global economy, education, tourism, and many other sectors took disastrous damage and fell miserably. The educational institutions were closed immediately due to the wide-spreading infectiousness of the virus. But the situation was partially handled with the help of online curriculums and conferences. Bangladesh, like any other developing country, felt the urgency of taking the whole education system online. Confronting this miserable circumstance, the educational board of Bangladesh faced a lot of new problems arriving with the online system. Educational requirements were moved to web-based platforms in March 2020. This study is an attempt to illuminate and explore the problems and prospects regarding online education at the tertiary level in Bangladesh. The whole study explored the social, technical, and psychological obstacles that caused the behavioral, operational, and statistical changes that occurred to the system. It also attempts to show how the e-learning system can be improved in the future. An online survey-based questionnaire was created for collecting data from both the teachers’ and students’ perspectives. The findings were observed statistically and the result revealed that the participants have experienced many problems as well as some prospects can be found too which may make the online teaching and learning efficient. In the very end, some suggestions were recommended to develop the system further ahead.