Emergency remote teaching in Nepali higher education institutions during COVID-19

Abstract

This study explored Nepali university teachers’ and students’ perceptions and experiences of emergency remote teaching (ERT) vis-à-vis its opportunities and challenges during the COVID-19 crisis. Study data were collected via email by employing online questionnaires to higher education teachers and students from 10 colleges under seven universities in Nepal. The respondents’ responses to the closed questions were quantified and analyzed using a descriptive model, whereas responses to open-ended questions were critically examined by adopting thematic analysis method. Our findings indicate that while ERT, which brought many opportunities for self-motivated teachers and students, was useful during the prolonged health crisis, challenges experienced by the respondents suggested that higher education institutions were not fully successful in addressing key issues such as teacher training and support mechanism required for the effective implementation of ERT.

Keywords:

• emergency remote teaching (ERT)
• higher education institutions
• COVID-19
• technology
• satisfaction

Acknowledgments

We owe a lot to the participants who facilitated our study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was declared by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author (SNG). The data are not publicly available due to their containing information that could compromise the privacy of research participants.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Raj K. Baral

Raj K. Baral is an assistant professor at Tribhuvan University, Nepal. As a researcher, his interests span language and literature, higher education policy, rhetoric, and writing among others. Currently, he is pursuing his PhD in rhetoric and writing studies from The University of Texas at El Paso, United States of America.

Laxman Bhatta

Laxman Bhatta is an assistant professor at Tribhuvan University, Nepal. Along with a decade-long teaching experience at the graduate level, he has also been engaged in translations and publications on postcolonial issues and Devkota aesthetics.

Som Nath Ghimire

Som Nath Ghimire is an MPhil scholar in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Education at the Nepal Open University, Nepal. A former journalist and poet, Ghimire is a schoolteacher. His research interests include media, surveillance, criminology, culture, rhetoric, educational policy, and leadership.