Assignment

On
‘Constructive Strategies to Conduct Virtual / Online Academic
Activities More Effectively at University Level’

Course Name: Strategic Management (524)

Submitted To:
Mahmud Ullah
Associate Professor
Department of Marketing
Faculty of Business Studies
University of Dhaka

Submitted By:
Tasnim Ara Moon
ID: 105, Sec: B
Batch: 22nd
Department of Marketing
University of Dhaka
 Submission Deadline:
October 17, 2020

Contents
Impact of COVID19 pandemic in Bangladesh and around the world...................................................3
My social, economic and educational experiences...................................................................................4
Online education initiative by University of Dhaka and my experiences..............................................4
My suggestions for making virtual classes more fruitful........................................................................4
References:.................................................................................................................................................5

Constructive Strategies to Conduct Virtual / Online Academic Activities

More Effectively at University Level
Impact of COVID19 pandemic in Bangladesh and around the world

As of 1 June 2020, globally, 1.2 billion learners (68.0 per cent of the world's total enrolled
learners) were affected due to the education institute closure in 144 countries, according to  
UNESCO data. Since 17 March, all the educational institutes in the country have remained
closed. Finance minister AHM Mustafa Kamal, in his budget speech in the national parliament
on Thursday, also said that Covid-19 has essentially caused discontinuation of the regular
academic curriculum of around 40.0 million students across the country. A broader and deeper
consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic on the education sector might emerge from the economic
downturns being ignited by the pandemic control measures. SANEM estimates based on the
latest Household Income Expenditure Survey (HIES) shows that - before the crisis, 23.90 per
cent (or 8.4 million) of the students' families were below the poverty line. As the crisis prolongs,
assuming a three months long lockdown since 25 March, therefore a 25.0 per cent fall in annual
per capita income, SANEM find that as many as 43.90 per cent of the students' families could
fall below the poverty line (for primary: 51.70 per cent, secondary: 42.40 per cent; SSC/HSC:
30.20 per cent; and university: 19.0 per cent). Hence, there could be as many as 7.70 million
additional students' families falling below the poverty line during this crisis, taking the total
number of students below the poverty line to 16 million. This pandemic will have a long term
effect on student’s school going especially poor student’s dropout will increase. Child labor,
poverty, robbery, unemployment, industrialization, high school dropout, shifting to rural or
suburban areas will increase as a consequence.

My social, economic and educational experiences

Now to tell about my experience, it was a really drastic and nerve-racking situation in the initial
stage. The pandemic started to spread throughout the whole country. As I live in mohammadpur,
which was one the red zones of high COVID19 cases the whole area got locked down. There was
an abject silence everywhere. People were not being able to move around freely. Super stores,
restaurants and other daily commodities stores used to be closed early than usual, shopping malls
and other retail stores got shut down for uncertain period. Police patrol were everywhere so that
people do not get outside unnecessarily. Most people lost their jobs or their salary has been cut.
Many people left the city because of not being able to afford house rent. National security
certificate issuing has been increased and TAX/VAT income has been decreased. Because of this
government may resort to borrowing money from Bangladesh Bank. In order to meet the
borrowing demand of the government, Bangladesh Bank may then consider "printing" more
money. This is the main reason for worry. As it is an already established fact, printing more
money to finance government expenditures is a highly risky business as it can lead to an increase
in inflation which can quickly go out of hand and result in hyperinflation.

Online education initiative by University of Dhaka and my experiences

After hearing about the online classes I was hopeful that at last we are going to resume our
classes and we do not have to face extended period of MBA program. On the contrary, I was
dubious about the standard of online classes and as we are the MBA students, which is a
specialized or advanced program of BBA and this is our last chance to sharpen our mind to make
it ready for the corporate world. I was also terrified about the exam and evaluation system that
will be taken for online classes. Again, whether this evaluation system will be fair for all or not is
another concern here as most of the students live in rural area where they do not get better
network or internet accessibility, access to devices, books etc. as they suddenly went to home on
a short notice. Hopefully, university governing committee has taken some timely measures to
combat these hindrances. They made a deal with Grameenphone to provide university students
low cost sim card with an opportunity to buy data packages in low price than usual.

My suggestions for making virtual classes more fruitful

Some of my suggestions to conduct online classes more effectively are as follows:

1. Interactive session: Classes should be more interactive as like offline classes. Course
outline should be designed in such a way that students are bound to participate and make
discussions. Teachers should not talk or give lectures all the time whereas students should
be given room to express their opinion and make two way conversation. An effective way
to engage students in discussions is breakout room. Teachers can send students in
breakout room to have discussions in a particular topic in group. Then they will come out
of that room and suggest the course teacher on that topic and the best group will rewarded
highest marks.
 2. Time schedule: Either in the morning classes can be taken as in this time students can
get better network access and have less chaos around them or night class also be effective
for busy students.
3. Class numbers in a day: Highest two classes can be taken of two different courses in a
day. As of today all our activities has gone online we are gradually probing to its side
effects like eye sight problem, pressure on brain.
4. Assignment or group work based evaluation system: Real time examination system
should be avoided for the time being as most of the students do not have internet access
at the same time.

References:

1. Mahtab Uddin (2020) Effects of the pandemic on the education sector in Bangladesh:
The Financial Express. Sunday, 11 October. University of Dhaka.
2. Dr Tasneem Raihan (2020) Coronavirus paving the way for higher inflation in
Bangladesh? : The Daily star. October 10.