University Students’ and Teachers’ Wellbeing During COVID-19 in Bangladesh: A Qualitative Enquiry

Abstract

The wellbeing of teachers and students has emerged as a common concern in research studies in recent times, specifically during the critical period of COVID-19. Based on the findings drawn from the qualitative data through focus group discussions of five groups of teachers (16 females and 8 males) and students (10 males and nine females) at the tertiary level of education in Bangladesh, this paper shows that online teaching during COVID-19 is affected by personal and social challenges, and consequently, both teachers and students experience anxieties and stresses. Teachers are anxious because of the university authorities' surveillance, frequent pay cuts, and fear of losing jobs due to students' low enrollment in universities. They also suffer from physical discomforts, such as back pain, blur vision, and headache because of the prolonged engagement with online activities. Students, especially those from a non-privileged background located in peripheral rural contexts, seem to suffer more from contextual realities that are non-conducive for technology-based learning. Increased numbers and various forms of online assessments also seem to become a burden for them. In general, educational experiences of online teaching seemed to have a peripheral role in their conceptualization of wellbeing. The paper concludes that the insurmountable attention given to online pedagogic practices across the world needs to be balanced out by an equal effort in improving the wellbeing of both teachers and students.