Effect of COVID-19 pandemic on education among the students of khulna university

The purpose of the study was to identify the effects of COVID-19 pandemic on education among the students of Khulna University. Hence, this study investigates the effectiveness of online education, the effects of COVID-19 Pandemic on career persuasion, and the physical and psychological effects of online education on students. To conduct case study, in-depth interviews and FGD, purposive sampling procedure was used. This research was conducted in Khulna University and the Khulna University students who studied at any discipline and belonged in 3rd year and 4th year were considered as the participants of this study. Students from sociology discipline of social science school, pharmacy discipline of life science school, CSE discipline of SET school, sculpture discipline of fine arts school and Bangla discipline of Arts and humanities school were selected for data collection. A total 31 participants were purposively selected for this study for ten in-depth interviews, two Focus Group Discussions, and five case studies where checklist was used for data collection. Findings of the study revealed that online education had a positive effect on students but there were some negative effects. Students got benefited when online education was started but as socioeconomic situation of all students was not same, that's why they had to suffer. Five themes were identified such as perception on university closure and online education, social interaction, physical and mental health, financial crisis and parental involvement and career persuasion. Furthermore, students suffered more from economic hardship, lack of modern equipment, high internet cost, social disengagement from friends and teachers and so on. The study suggest that counselling, funding for online education, proper internet connectivity and access to devices should be taken into account to manage the online education for students.

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