Online Academics in Pakistan: COVID-19 and Beyond

Keywords: COVID-19, Coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, Education, Online Academics.

Abstract

COVID-19 is a menace for Pakistan’s fragile and overburdened health care system and infrastructure, insidiously permeating the socio-economic fabric. Globally complete to partial shutdown of educational institutions has been enforced, transitioning from face to face to online academics. Academic institutes are floundering to withstand the brunt. Therefore, the current study was conducted to attempt to review and highlight the impact and challenges posed by transition from conventional to online academics and how to approach them, in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic with the perspective of developing countries like Pakistan. For this purpose, search for relevant literature using search engines and websites including Google, Google Scholar and Web of Science as well as Medline database was conducted with keywords “Covid-19, academics, mental health, social impact and e-learning and combination of words”. Thirty two English language, full text articles published in the last ten years from 2010 to 2020 were selected for the literature review. With this literature review, we conclude that this lockdown has caused significant distortion in the academic world yet unequal interruption in learning with significant disruptions in internal assessments and qualification examinations with developing countries like Pakistan, compounded by a compromised educational system. However, COVID-19 is spurring the case for conversion to online academics and developing countries like Pakistan are poised to develop reliable, cost effective and secure online academic system whether it is bane or boon.

doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.37.1.2894

How to cite this:
Mumtaz N, Saqulain G, Mumtaz N. Online Academics in Pakistan: COVID-19 and Beyond. Pak J Med Sci. 2021;37(1):283-287. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.37.1.2894

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Author Biographies

Nazia Mumtaz, Dr., Riphah International University, Islamabad.

Dr. Nazia Mumtaz, PhD (Rehabilitation Sciences)
Head of Department of Speech Language Pathology,
Faculty of Rehab & Allied Health Sciences,
Riphah International University, Islamabad

Ghulam Saqulain, Dr., Capital Hospital PGMI, CDA Islamabad

Dr. Ghulam Saqulain, F.C.P.S (Otorhinolaryngology)
Head of Department of Otolaryngology
Department of ENT
Capital Hospital, Islamabad.

ghulam_saqulain@yahoo.com

Nadir Mumtaz, Mr., FBR, Islamabad

Mr. Nadir Mumtaz, LLB
Former DG Research
FBR Islamabad.

Published
2020-12-09
How to Cite
Mumtaz, N., Saqulain, G., & Mumtaz, N. (2020). Online Academics in Pakistan: COVID-19 and Beyond. Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences, 37(1). https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.37.1.2894
Section
Special Communications

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