COVID-19 : will it be a game changer in higher education in India?

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to compare the efficacy of various forms of education that may be imparted to students in the wake of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and the consequent lockdown period where traditional modes of education are suspended. Various colleges and universities where the authors are currently teaching have been instructed to teach in online mode using tools like zoom messenger. In this direction, the authors first discuss how outcome-based online learning may be implemented in the Indian education sector. To prove their point, the authors select a set of students from the science and engineering streams and impart education to them using both traditional and online methods. Tests are conducted on them after both forms of learning. Multivariate regression analysis is applied on these test results to derive a model for both forms of learning. Results show that both forms of learning are equally effective on these classes of students. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used for the simulation purpose. Thus we may conclude that in normal circumstances the online method of teaching may not always be beneficial considering the stages and adaptability among all sections of students in a variety of disciplines, but for the science and engineering discipline, a blended learning composed of both classroom-based teaching and online learning methodology may be used to obtain good results, especially when the former form of learning is not available.