Online Education: An Unprepared Effort Posing Challenges to Students and Teachers of the Punjab State of India Amid COVID-19

ABSTRACT

The terrifying and rigorous effects of COVID-19 have stunned India and in fact the whole world to its core. Like other countries, the government of India has also closed all its schools, colleges and universities to contain the further spread of this highly contagious virus. An attempt has been made to shift the traditional teaching to online teaching ignoring the fact that in India, only 47% of the households are getting electricity for more than 12 h a day and only 24% of Indians have smart phones, which are the basic requirements for online classes. In this chapter, a survey-based analysis has been done among the students and teachers of the Punjab state of India to highlight the difficulties faced by them in online classes amid COVID-19. Recommendations from the chapter will certainly help the state government in further drafting educational policies for online teaching. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.