Online Learning during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Review of Student Experiences in Asian Higher Education

By Asian Development Bank

This report analyzes the online learning experiences of higher education students in six Asian countries during the pandemic to illustrate how to provide technical and learning support, narrow the digital divide, and direct future policy. Drawing on surveys from Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, the Republic of Korea, and Viet Nam, the report touches on areas including internet availability, student satisfaction, and levels of student-teacher interaction. Providing country breakdowns, it considers funding for online education, underscores the challenges for low-income students, and sets out how to fill the skills and training gap to offer equal access to better education.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Asian Development Bank
• Release date: Dec 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9789292705619

Book preview

I. Introduction

Background

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic led to an unprecedented socioeconomic crisis and severely affected higher education institutions (HEIs) as it disrupted education worldwide. Social distancing and limited-movement policies within schools to curb the spread of the disease threw university operations and the traditional education system into disarray. According to a report by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 1.3 billion students worldwide—from pre-primary to higher education—were unable to attend school because of school closures (UNESCO 2020). Online teaching and learning became the only option for schools wanting to continue their classes during the pandemic.

To navigate and sustain the education system, universities worldwide responded to the changing reality in different ways. In Asia, most universities closed their campuses in 2020 and tried to implement digitally enhanced teaching and learning institution wide. Global universities moved quickly from face-to-face to online classes. Digital tools used in online classes include learning management systems (LMSs), email, and meeting software such as Zoom and WebEx (Crawford et al. 2020).

Efforts to sustain good-quality education by shifting to online education have their basis in government policies worldwide, including developing member countries (DMCs) of the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Sri Lanka, for instance, has shown exemplary performance in organizing online courses for university students through the joint efforts of individuals, institutions, and the government. Soon after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 outbreak a global pandemic, the highest political leadership took action to deal with some critical obstacles to online learning (e.g., barriers to free internet access). The country’s president and the chair of its University Grants Commission went straight to decision-making. As a result, Sri Lanka reportedly gained a level of access to online learning during the pandemic that was not significantly different from that achieved in developed countries (Hayashi et al. 2020). Indonesia, for its part, prepared early for online learning through its Merdeka Belajar–Kampus Merdeka policy, which allowed cross-credit online studies off campus. The policy, released in March 2020, is seen to have advanced the generic application of online learning during the pandemic (Pannen 2021).

Universities in developing and developed countries responded differently when moving to online instruction and management (Crawford et al. 2020). The variability in HEI implementation of online learning and teaching within countries gave rise to different digital strategies to enable students to continue their education. Administrators and faculties had to deal with widespread challenges: schools had to be equipped with effective tools and platforms for online education, and instructors had to reorganize their lectures and evaluation methods for the virtual sphere.

While the digital campus in higher education has grown, a lack of tools, infrastructure, resources, pedagogical approaches, and technology (e.g., reliable internet access) to support teaching and learning emerged as significant obstacles for HEIs (Marinoni, van’t Land, and Jensen 2020). Vulnerable to these COVID-19 challenges in distance learning, not all universities in many developing countries in Asia could assure their students of good-quality and effective learning. For the students, on the other hand, the transition to online education amid localized or countrywide school closures affected their academic work and social life. Those enrolled in universities during this period may have fallen behind their peers academically and socially.

Interest in online learning methods and experience—specifically, the skills teachers must have to teach better and the technical and administrative support that institutions should provide—has grown since the start of COVID-19. Some research has gone into teaching skills that teachers used during the pandemic or that they need to acquire (Rapanta et al. 2020). This research is focused on specific pedagogical content knowledge that teachers aspired to attain as the learning environment shifted from face-to-face to online. Three aspects—social, cognitive, and facilitative—that must be considered to improve teaching skills in virtual settings have been pointed out.

Other research has disclosed how different online LMSs and platforms for online classes could benefit or disadvantage students and teachers (Murphy, Eduljee, and Croteau 2020). Teacher support in giving students timely and meaningful feedback and virtual tutoring, and communicating with them online, was an urgent need (Bao 2020).

Student stress and mental health issues arising from negative learning environments and fear of the virus may have affected student learning during the pandemic. Considering the different circumstances that students from vulnerable communities and families found themselves in, these mental health disruptions could increase stratification among students in educational attainment and academic achievement.

Student inequalities widened in developing countries in Asia and the Pacific during COVID-19 (UNESCO 2020). In some of these countries, the disparities may come to light in a context rarely encountered in more developed countries. Looking into the diverse range of circumstances and addressing the challenges that students and instructors dealt with will give policymakers a clearer perspective on the requirements and difficulties of online learning. They should then be better able to devise strategies that will ensure the provision of fair and effective online learning to the majority.

Universities have had to go through a dynamic change in their teaching spectrum. Knowledge had to be conveyed and received in a starkly different educational setting during the partial or complete closure of HEIs and the shift to online learning. Although the crisis was not perceived as long-lasting, it was expected to transform the concept of space in higher education even after the crisis ended. Online learning is likely to remain part of the student experience.

This new form of education—along with tradition—will lead universities to new opportunities. However, inadequate experience and understanding of this alternative education system in Asia and the Pacific has led many to underestimate its effect on the future of higher education. Challenges in infrastructure, application, resources, instructor and student readiness, and students’ individual learning experiences have been specifically mentioned as issues that should be covered in future research. Institutional and governmental priorities must also be reexamined to make sure that online education achieves the desired results in future years.

Despite the costs of online learning to HEIs and governments, some positive outcomes in online education during the pandemic have induced many universities to continue with the changes. With high-quality communication technologies, internet access, and a positive attitude toward change, online education could do much more in the future than merely providing support for face-to-face learning (Aguilera-Hermida 2020, Adedoyin and Soykan 2020). Online learning blended into higher education should be distinguished and systematized beyond the emergency remote learning utilized during