Covid -19 lockdown-challenges to higher education in qatar

Abstract

Covid 19 is a pandemic disease and it has spread all over the world. Due to the concern for the health of students, colleges and school authorities all over the world have decided to close the education institution and universities. It has interrupted the face to face education, assessments, final exams, different educational activities, graduation day, and other events. To overcome these crises, the education sectors have taken on the challenge of online education. Most of the countries had started education online. The sudden transform of education platforms physically and mentally had affected teachers and students. Most of them have it is the new platform and they have struggled to adapt to the new environment. To assess the effectiveness of online education during the pandemic time in Qatar, we conducted a survey in the Computer Science Department of Qatar University. Also compared different strategies adopted by universities in Qatar and other universities in the world for online education. The survey indicated that 50% of students are dissatisfied with online education due to network problems and technical issues. The main issues that students highlighted in the survey were lack of face-to-face interaction with the instructor, mental stress due to the absence of campus environment, and connectivity problems.