Today, there is usually a conflict about emergency remote learning (ERL) as a substitution for the formal education system. The goal of this chapter is to figure out the advantages and drawbacks of ERL, particularly for students and teachers, and assess the student's satisfaction levels on ERL due to Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). This chapter revealed that more than 25% of the participants were satisfied with having online in real-time while 38% of participants were dissatisfied. This chapter exposed some drawbacks such as students are incompetent to focus on the study effectively from the house and the ERL is not as effective as blended learning. Furthermore, this chapter recommends that there still is a shortage of support services, a lack of technological expertise, deficiency of adequate internet connectivity, lack of proper practical work, and financial problems of the family associated with this ERL educational environment. The author concludes that students prefer campus life to the online classes.
TopIntroduction
The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has raised stress and apprehension among the people of Bangladesh. The disease with severe symptoms and signs is extremely transmissible (WHO, 2020). The challenge of delivering quality for continuity of education that promotes learning and the psychosocial well-being of students and teachers is risky for successful readiness and response to education. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, the entire world, including Bangladesh, has experienced a significant shift in the educational pattern. Current downturns of real-time education increased demand for online education and have forced universities, teachers, and students to adapt in an unforeseen way of Emergency Remote Learning (ERL).
In Bangladesh, over 5000 institutions of higher education including universities in the public and private sectors, professional institutions, and adjoining institutions, have four million students (Ahmed, 2020). In consideration of the health crisis, after the temporary closing of educational facilities, the government of Bangladesh has decided to use the Education Policy as an immediate step to continue the educational process. Emergency Remote Learning (ERL) process as an alternative way should be appreciated as a holdup educational system to carry on the learning activities in the pandemic situation (Roman & Plopeanu, 2021).
In earlier studies, the closing of educational facilities as an efficient tactic to break the vital transmission network during the pandemic was appreciated (Earn et al., 2012; Kawano & Kakehashi, 2015; Luca et al., 2018; Wu et al., 2010). However, this harms students' academic study, including learning interruptions, delays to assessments, and an influence on marginalized students (UNESCO, 2020). According to UNESCO, COVID-19 has negatively impacted more than 60 percent of the student population worldwide by the national shut of colleges, schools, universities, and other educational establishments (UNESCO, 2020). The COVID-19 is not the last epidemic that poses a challenge to education stability, mainly when climate change affects infectious diseases' incidences. It is crucial that universities urgently inform their emergency readiness plans by implementing emergency strategies, discussing university-based preventive and disease protection initiatives, and how teachers and students will continue to be trained and informed if campuses are locked down.
Previous studies have presented that university teachers stated some of the main difficulties about online courses raised for the lack of proper instruction, planning in the organization within a very short time (Baldwin et al., 2018; Ocak, 2011). Students faced difficulties transitioning to online lectures, adapting to modern approaches and workloads of online (B.Milman, 2020) assessment, engaging with teachers, and solving many online instructional concerns, such as electronic computer unavailability, Internet connectivity, high Internet cost, etc. (Owusu-Fordjour et al., 2020). Another recent study focused that students being associated with a lack of online tools and home set-up for eLearning in Romania (Roman & Plopeanu, 2021). Many students experience strain to read books in online mode, sit before a cell phone, tablets for long hours, difficulties in the network, lack of personal contact with teachers, depression from lockdown. The lack of research on guidelines for planning the resilience of education is devastating.
Although there are various COVID-19 research papers related to education, there has been no research in Bangladesh on the higher education sector in the best understanding of the experts. A study on the impact of COVID-19 on higher education in Bangladesh and its students is essential to determine educational conflicts generated by COVID-19. Thus, the objectives of this chapter were to examine the effect of ERL on students and teachers according to their satisfaction levels and to explore the advantages and drawbacks of ERL on higher education level students in Bangladesh. This chapter pursued to acquire empirical evidence concerning the use of emergency remote learning and to examine the satisfaction level of the students with online in real-time, audio and video recording quality, sending presentations to students’ materials, written communication, teacher-student interaction, and peer interaction.