Vol. 12, Issue 5 (2023)

Author(s):
C Vara Prasad, K Natarajan, Shely Mary Koshy, M Balarubini and Dhanusha Balakrishnan

Abstract:
The World Health Organization has declared Covid-19 as a pandemic that has posed a contemporary series of threats to humanity that has ever seen in this century. This pandemic has forced the global shutdown affecting all public activities, including education. As a result, the mode of education has changed dramatically, and there was a distinctive rise in e-learning and online classes across the country and the knowledge is delivered to students remotely through various digital learning platforms. Against this backdrop, the present study was coiled to identify and prioritize the challenges faced by undergraduate students in attending online classes. This study was conducted among the first-year agriculture undergraduate students of Karunya Institute of Technology and Sciences, Coimbatore who are attending online classes in southern states of the India i.e., Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Two hundred and twenty students from these states were selected randomly for the present study and these respondents were interviewed through a pre-tested, structured interview schedule developed to identify the challenges in attending the online classes with the help of Google Forms. The obtained data were processed with the help of statistical tools like frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation and Rank Based Quotient (RBQ). The challenges identified were: ‘Poor/ unstable internet connectivity’ (71.23%), ‘High cost of ICT tools’ (58.77%), ‘Lack of sufficient knowledge and skill in the use of e-learning’ (58.09%), ‘Irregular power supply’ (57.64%), ‘Online classes leading to stress and eye-problems’ (57.27%), ‘High internet charges’ (52.23%), ‘Lack of proper training before using e-learning platform’ (51.14%), ‘Lack of confidence and shyness from learning online’ (51.09%), ‘Online classes make me feel alone’ (46.68%), ‘Home environment will not allow to concentrate on classes’ (45.86%).