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In December 2019, a new pneumonia-like disease spread in Wuhan, China referred to as novel coronavirus disease or COVID-19 that was caused by the SARS CoV-2 virus. Within few weeks, the disease became a global epidemic and was referred to as a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 11 March, 2020 since then, more than 1.25 crore people worldwide and more than 7 lakh people in India have been affected by the disease as of 10 July, 2020. The disease spreads by respiratory droplets and infected surfaces. For most cases, the virus has mild symptoms such as fever, weakness, dyspnea, cough, etc., and can become serious if adequate precautions are not taken. In India, coronavirus was first detected on 30 January, 2020 and began to spread to almost all parts of the country. National governments across the country began to close universities and colleges briefly in March as a measure to stop the spread of the novel corona virus.

It's almost three months away, and if they're going to restart, there's no guarantee that the virus cure has been found yet. With the advent of this pandemic globally, traditional campuses with physical infrastructure support have been replaced by private spaces allowing extensive use of technology, internet and social media. This has led to reduced teacher-students face to face interactions, discussions leading to remote delivery with student centric individual learning and development of customized tools and contents addressing varied needs of the students. The physical evaluation method may soon be replaced by blended methods with formative assessment and evaluation of learning outcomes before advancements to next stage in online courses. It also allows flexibility to the learner towards their shared responsibilities for their parents, guardians and family members. It's a critical time for the education sector — board exams, pre-school enrolment, numerous university entrance tests and competitive exams, among many others, that are all underway at this stage which have been deferred as a preventive measure to contain the virus spread. While the days go by without an urgent means of preventing the Covid-19 crisis, school and university closures have shown short-term effect on the educational coherence of more than 285 million individual students in India and will also have far-reaching business and cultural implications in near future.

In order to have access to missed educational opportunities, children no longer have access to healthy snacks during this time and are vulnerable to financial and cultural stress. Therefore, the greatest problem is the effect of disability on work development on everyone's mind. As a result of the current situation, young graduates in India are afraid of the cessation of work vacancy by major corporations. The Centre for Tracking Economic Growth on Joblessness figures increased from 8.4% in mid-March to 23% in early April, and the youth poverty rate to 30.9% in early April.

It goes without saying that the global epidemic has reshaped the centuries-old chalk – talking blackboard based teaching model as one with technology–led advanced tools. This uncertainty in educational delivery will force decision-makers to find out how to accelerate on-scale participation while maintaining affordable e-learning options and closing the technology gap.The COVID 19 pandemic has created a VUCA environment which stands for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity (VUCA) leading to shutting down of campuses and restrictions in place towards its routine functioning, uncertainties with regards to examination and academic calendar, health safety concerns, halting and delay in conduct of several competitive examinations, uncertainty with regards to admissions and future learning among students, enhanced costs and its effect on campus placements are few such outcome of present situation which has caused severe dilemma and indecisiveness for the administrators as well as the users. The system for education and learning is the one that has been impacted by such closures, including schooling and assessment techniques. Just a handful of private schools have been able to implement online teaching approaches. Yet, on the other hand, their low-income government and private school counterparts for not having access to e-learning solutions have shut down entirely.

The students require higher education to enhance their knowledge, seek job or employment or start their own businesses as an entrepreneur. This can be provided by providing right education through ASK which stands for developing the right attitude, building both hard and soft skills and enhancing their knowledge through theoretical, conceptual and practical aspects. This would develop the right balance of emotional, intelligence, spiritual, curiosity and adoptability quotient in the students. As per research published in KMPG India and Google, it was found that the online education market in India is valued at INR 39 billion in 2018 which is expected to grow almost 10 times to INR 361 billion by 2024 which shows that it would expand by almost 44% during the period 2019 to 2024. This would be possible due to ease of learning, flexibility in choosing course modules and location to do those courses and availability of large number of options and material available online due to growth of the industry. The preference for industry is for skill-based labor force and drive towards virtual education. According to Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), around 30 million youth in the age group of 20-30 years lost their jobs in April 2020 following a nationwide lockdown announced by the Government to prevent the spread of Covid-19. Due to the present scenario there is low market demand, constraints on supply and demand side and employers are looking for candidates having multiple skills or can-do multi-tasking at their workplace. Many industries are increasingly acknowledging e-learning as a cost-effective and convenient source of educational practice due to class-based education proving to be expensive for small and medium-sized firms. In the current scenario, professionals would be required to re-skill themselves every 3–4 years to remain relevant in their evolving job roles as per hiring firms. They also acknowledge the fact that e-learning platforms are bringing in a measurable difference in students’ engagement and performance. It is reducing gaps in the delivery of education and giving a new dimension to the education space.

To read the further articles please get your copy of Eastern Panorama August issue @http://www.magzter.com/IN/Hill-Publications/Eastern-Panorama/News/ or mail to contact @easternpanorama.in