E-Learning in Higher Education amidst Covid-19 Pandemic: Challenges and Opportunities Faced by the Students of the University of Delhi

The year 2020 witnessed the outbreak of Covid-19, a disease caused by SARS-COV-2 virus. After the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared it a Pandemic, several counties decided to shut down all activities as a consequence of a health emergency. The virus had severely impacted more than 157 crore students across 191 countries around the world. The pandemic shook the normalcy in every sphere of life and forced the closure of educational institutions, including schools, colleges, and Universities across the world. The crisis left the educational institutions with no other option but to resort to distance learning. Hence, ‘E-learning’ emerged as the new normal for the teaching fraternity. With rampant use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), a new reality of virtual teaching and learning has dawned with an escalated penetration of online activities. Webinar and Faculty Development Programmes were organised by various colleges to acquaint the teachers with various digital platforms that could be used as an alternative to the physical, face-to-face teaching-learning among the students of the University of Delhi. Education combined with technology offers numerous opportunities in terms of efficiency but at the same time poses challenges ranging from technical, social, logistical issues to attitudinal changes. A self-structured questionnaire-based study has been conducted. Data has been collected from the students enrolled in the various programmes of the University of Delhi. The aim of the study is to analyse the effectiveness of virtual teaching and assessment methods, and also its impact on the physical and financial health of the students. Statistical tools such as Descriptive statistics, Reliability Analysis, Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, one sample t-test and non-parametric hypothesis testing have been applied to achieve the results of the study. The findings suggest that Covid-19 has opened up the educational environment, and acceptability to E-learning in the Indian Context. E-learning has also emerged as a window of opportunity for EdTech start-ups, and such tools can provide a feasible solution, however, they cannot completely substitute the conventional face-to-face interaction-based learning, keeping in mind the various technological, social and economic and health factors that act as a barrier in effective teaching-learning process.


Introduction
COVID-19 had been a catalyst for change.This caused a public healthcare crisis, livelihood crisis, as well as a wealth crisis across the world .Universities and all other educational institutions throughout the country had to be closed from March 16, 2020 when the Indian Government announced a countrywide lockdown as one of the several measures to contain the outbreak of the pandemic.
The Government of India through its various Ministries, viz., Ministry of Health, Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Education and Ministry of Ayush had taken initiatives to contain the virus' spread and issued directives and advisories to educate the people about the seriousness of the infection from Coronavirus and the measures to protect from it.Precise instructions were issued to the pan Indian universities and colleges by the Ministry of Education and the University Grants Commission in this regard.
Firms both in public and private sectors, educational institutions and even the healthcare sector had to heavily rely on technology automation and digitisation to meet the goals.The pandemic had posed enormous implications for economies and the future of mankind, and a strong determination to overcome it was required.The spread of the coronavirus also known as COVID-19 started in December 2019.The origin was traced in Wuhan, China.The virus was easily transmitted from person to person and the World Health Organisation declared it a pandemic in early 2020.The pandemic severely impacted the world economy and not just industries-big, small and medium-sized suffered heavily, but the education sector also had to bear its brunt.
A complete lockdown was announced in various parts of the world as an after effect of the pandemic.
People were asked to maintain social distancing to curb the spread of this viral disease.Offices, malls, temples, airports, railway stations, schools, colleges and Universities that saw a large number of human gatherings were closed down completely.Businesses, educational institutions, recreational clubs etc world over were completely shut down.Work from home became a new normal.In India, a complete lockdown was announced by our honourable Prime Minister from March 24, 2020 initially for a period of three weeks.This move made all the schools, colleges and Universities to suffer a jolt and adjust to the new normal "teach from home".
In order to contain the pandemic, but at the same time ensure continuity in teaching-learning process, the University's Grant Commission and Ministry of Education had issued several advisories and guidelines to the universities and colleges, to impart online teaching by making the best use of e-resources.Webinars and Faculty Development Programmes were organised by various colleges to acquaint the teachers with various digital platforms that could be used as an alternative to the physical, face-toface teaching-learning among the students of the University of Delhi.Ministry of Education through all its communications, emphasized to continue with teaching-learning processes using online modes such as Cisco Webex Meeting, Google Classroom, OERs, YouTube streaming, SWAYAM platform, Swayam Prabha, e-yantra, Virtual Labs, application of spoken tutorials, National Digital Library (NDL), electronic journals.
'E learning' was adopted by all the educational institutions to ensure that the students did not suffer.The stakeholders of the educational system switched from the traditional ways of learning to the modern technological mode.Faculty and students started learning to use various digital platforms Google meet, Zoom, WebEx, Google classroom etc. 'Remote learning' became the new normal.Indian education system prior to the pandemic followed a brick-andmortar system where face to face teaching learning took place.blended learning though did exist some places, but mostly the educational institutions followed the traditional method in imparting knowledge.
The spread of virus changed the teaching methodology altogether.The educational institutions though suffered a jolt initially but came to terms with this situation immediately.The use of internet and internet-based activities became rampant.There was also a steep rise in the use of internet services during the lockdown period.
E-learning enjoys several advantages but also suffers from certain limitations.Genuine concern in respect of affordability, accessibility, connectivity especially in rural and remote areas have been raised by the stakeholders.

Review of Literature
Virtual Learning allows students to learn as per their convenience as physical presence is not required.When the world experienced lock down under which businesses, educational institutions, recreation clubs etc were closed down, teachers and students followed virtual learning.This involved the use of the internet and many digital platforms to facilitate the process (Fry).In today's world, the students should be prepared to face any health challenges through increased awareness.(Lee et al.) emphasised that environmental hygiene should be made a top priority in schools.This would help in the prevention of infectious diseases being transmitted.(Fox) pointed out that in 2003, China witnessed the spread of SARS.This led to the closure of 302 schools and nearly 10 lakh students to stay at home and teachers faced many technological problems in educating their students from home.It was further stated that teachers used various methods to teach their students such as uploading lectures online.
However, a large number of teachers were found not equipped to take online classes and faced many challenges.
Online teaching (Barr and Miller) can become effective and successful only if the stakeholders are supportive of the various innovative tools and devices available to teachers.
It was observed by (Hinderaker) that there was a continuous rise in the mental health disorders among college students and the matter needed immediate attention.The use of ICT tools has gained momentum and educational institutions must prepare themselves for meeting the challenges posed by them (Bond et al.).The transmission of knowledge through digital means has been in use for quite some time and more and more people are getting involved with it (Kopp et al., Leszczynski et al.).
In case of higher educational institutions, digital transformation included digital processes to facilitate the transformation (Kopp et al.)The spread of coronavirus known as covid-19 began in December 2019, its origin was traced in Wuhan China (Huang et al.).The virus was easily transmitted from person to person and spread quickly (Paules et al.; Cheng et al.).
The virus disease can be dangerous and fatal as it is linked to severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-COV) (Meng et al.,).(Meng et al.) further reiterated that though the virus hits the elderly and young children very fast, its threat looms equally high on people belonging to varied age groups.It gets transmitted through droplets or metal surfaces already infected by the patients suffering from the disease.The scientists and medical professionals became engrossed in research to combat covid-19 immediately (Abdulamir and Hafidh; Meng et al.).
The educational system was thrown in disarray as very little research had been done in this area (Yan).
Worldwide social distancing was suggested which meant a conscious effort to maintain a gap among people in order to curtail the transmission of virus.The closure of schools in early March 2020 affected over 290 million students globally which later grew to 1725 billion students spread over 193 countries.
The schools were under tremendous pressure as to how students would be educated digitally without letting them suffer in any way.China in January 2020 ordered the closure of all educational institutions for a period of one year.China's Ministry of Education even postponed many important tests such as GMAT, GRE, TOEFL etc. (Crawford et al.)The Government of India also took several steps to combat the pandemic.The University Grants Commission (UGC) also postponed examinations in all universities in an order issued on March 19th, 2020 till the end of the month.Many Central and private universities ordered closure of their institutions (Crawford et al.).
The closure of schools, colleges and Universities as a result of the pandemic gave way to e-learning.However, this transformation has put a question mark on the quality of education (Sahu).

Research Gap
Reading through the literature available on e-learning, a gap was identified.It was found that no study in the past has been conducted involving inputs from the students, who are very important stakeholders in the effective e-learning process.This paper aims to analyse the various opportunities and challenges that the students face in the virtual teaching learning interface.

Research Methodology
This study is based on primary data.Responses were collected from the students enrolled in the various colleges of University of Delhi, through a Likert scale-based questionnaire.A total sample of 1,116 responses were evaluated to draw conclusions.We have taken into consideration the qualitative aspects of the research study by using tools like Reliability analysis, non-parametric hypothesis testing and t-test is applied.The study is descriptive in nature and tries to understand the effectiveness of online learning and the various challenges faced.The study also suggests possible solutions to make virtual teaching-learning more effective.

Model
Various factors have been identified & incorporated in the questionnaire, to evaluate the effectiveness of online learning and also identify the major challenges and hurdles in the process of e-learning.

Statistical Results and Discussions
Cronbach's alpha (coefficient of reliability and consistency) was found to be 0.868 (Table 1 in annexure), which verifies the reliability and consistency of the scale.Normality of the data set was tested using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov goodness of fit test.On analysing the frequency tables, and running the one sample t-test, all the factors were found to be significant.However, the mean score for two of the factors: better concentration in online mode of teaching, and the challenge of health issues was found to be deviating from grouped means of the factors.Also, the responses shows that 73.3% of the students in the sample prefer physical face-to-face mode of learning.

Conclusion and Implications of the study
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the need to follow the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) framed by the University Grants Commission was essential, which suggested following COVID-19 Appropriate Behaviour like Physical distancing, use of face masks, respiratory etiquettes and no large gatherings.All these measures made it possible for the university to return back to the physical face to face classroom teaching.Higher Education institutions particularly in the India faced surmounting challenges in its operations management system: planning, implementing, as well as assessing the outcomes.However, the global pandemic opened up opportunities to the country to upgrade its educational mode of delivery and transfer its attention to emerging technologies.
Based on the statistical results found we can conclude that online teaching mode and particularly the internet and information technology is equally important in the post-pandemic scenario, where new innovations have led to a surge.Higher educational institutions thereby need to take hold of the opportunity to strengthen its evidence-based practices, and try to modify the curriculum to suit the changing pedagogy, so that the students can feel more engaged and have better levels of concentration and value addition to their knowledge base.Now, when the spread of Coronavirus is contained, some preventive measures continue to be followed to avoid its recurrence.This is necessary for higher educational institutions as large numbers of students gather on the campuses, so the reliance on Information and Communications Technology (ICT) tools will have to continue.Also, the Institutions and the teachers must keep themselves updated with the latest teaching-learning methods and availability of e-resources to keep up with the on-going teaching learning process.
Increased levels of anxiety and other health issues like headache, and eye sight problems due to increased screen time, among the students have been a major challenge.In order to combat these various challenges imposed by Virtual teaching-learning, the educational institutions need to cater to the mental health issues by having effective mentor-ward session, and also provide access to psychiatrists and career counsellor.The curriculum also need to be modified in line with the new and emerging trends.Colleges also must provide assistance to students who do not have access to requires electronic devices like desktops and the supporting software to keep the teaching learning process as smooth as possible.

Scope for Future Research
The current study focus on the University of Delhi only, which has a total of 91 constituent colleges operating.Indian higher education system is very large and diverse.There are various types of universities, colleges and institutions offering programmes ranging from engineering, technical, medical, sciences, humanities and social sciences at undergraduate, postgraduate, and doctoral level, besides research and extension activities.Also, they vary in their geographical conditions, size, infrastructural capacity, types and duration of programmes etc.Therefore, the issues and challenges faced by them in reopening their campus also vary considerably.Therefore, further studies can be conducted taking a bigger sample covering more universities.

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To analyse the effectiveness of online learning during the Covid-19 pandemic • To identify and analyze the various challenges faced by the students in online classes

Figure 1 Figure 2
Figure 1 Determinants of E-Learning effectiveness

Table 2 Frequency
TablesThe teaching staff, in your opinion, is well acquainted to utilize the technological framework like google meet, virtual whiteboards, google classrooms etc.Open Book Examination and Continuous Assessment by the teachers have helped in improving your overall scores Online teaching has promoted self-paced learning by giving access to the recorded lectures and various other e-resourcesYou face disruptions during the online classes due to issues like Internet Connection and Electricity cutRegardless of the training provided, it was difficult to acquaint yourself to the various teaching platformsThere was a lot of anxiety and apprehensions in adapting from offline to online mode of teaching You/Your family experienced an additional financial burden to be able to attend online classes (for example purchase of the gadgets or procuring internet connection)The delay in the conduct of examination and declaration of results led to a lag in career advancement or job procurementThe online mode of teaching has led to an increase in the screen time, leading to various health issues like headaches, eye sight problems, lack of appetite, backaches etc.

Table 4 One-Sample Test Test Value = 0.05 t df Sig. (2-tailed) Mean Difference 95% Confidence Interval of the Difference Lower Upper
The online mode of teaching has led to an increase in the screen time, leading to various health issues like headaches, eye sight problems, lack of appetite, backaches etc.

Table 5 ANOVA
The online teaching mode has made you more regular in attending the classes vis-à-vis the conventional physical mode