Online Education in India: A Panacea in the time of Covid 19

Abstract

The covid -19 pandemic has affected every aspect of life including education. Since the whole world is going through a pandemic, it has become imperative that we should be ready with some alternative mode of education and this is where online education has come into the picture. Although face to face education is still considered the norm but acceptance of online courses is increasing in the field of higher education . This pandemic has forcefully shifted the mode of teaching and learning from only face to face to online in the higher education which is new experiences and practices for many of the teachers and students. Even  the New Education Policy (NEP) 2020 has emphasised on the growing need of online education in india . NEP 2020 focuses on digital learning as a substitute to the traditional classroom model for interaction between teachers and student . While there are numerous benefits of digital education, the barriers are still manifold to make  education a complete online phenomenon in rural areas. The present Covid -19  crisis has had a major impact on the digital divide in the country, particularly from the perspective of education with digital access.    It has also brought into the sharp focus the challengers that exist for digital representaion of education. In this context, this paper investigated teachers’ and learners’ perspective on online education in relation to its benefits and major challenges.

Key words- Covid- 19, NEP, Pandemic , Digital education.