Vol. 11, Special Issue 11 (2022)

Author(s):
Marina Machiya Deori and Dr. Sampreety Gogoi

Abstract:
The global education system has been badly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the closure of schools, colleges, and institutions since March 2020. The global crisis has pushed the world into a digital world and exposed many digital gaps. It is because online learning relies heavily on the availability and accessibility of proper infrastructure, internet facilities, electricity, availability of computers, and smartphones. The current Covid-19 situation had put a significant influence on the country's digital divide, particularly in terms of schooling with digital access. Against such a backdrop, it is relevant to analyse the challenges of online classes during the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak. With this background, the present study was an attempt to know the problems faced during online learning, in the calendar year 2021-2022 by the school students of the Tinsukia district of Assam. By using a stratified multistage sampling procedure, a sample of 384 students from eight schools of the Tinsukia Urban and Hapjan blocks of the Tinsukia district were drawn randomly from classes 1-10, both from government and private schools. A self-constructed questionnaire was prepared to find out their problems faced during online schooling. It was revealed that the majority of the students found problems like internet connectivity, stress and anxiety, data limit, and backache during an online class. It was also depicted that there exists a significant difference in problems of urban and rural students in technological barriers, accessibility, and in mental health issues.