Teaching and Learning in Higher Education during Covid 19 Pandemic – a Comparative Study

Abstract

Since March 2020, when lock-down was imposed in Romania, education has been hit very hard and all educational institutions have suffered major, irrecoverable losses. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), over 800 million learners from around the world have been affected, 1 in 5 learners cannot attend school, 1 in 4 cannot attend higher education classes, and over 102 countries have ordered nationwide school closures while 11 have implemented localized school closure. Grant Kasowanjete, GCE Global Coordinator says: “Governments and civil society concerted efforts that mobilize resources, and expertise to address the impact of COVID-19 on education is urgently required. This process should include developing long term strategies to address the needs of education in emergencies.” Bania and Banerjee (2020) show that universities from all over the world have responded to COVID-19 differently: some have continued face-to-face teaching with social distancing (e.g., the University of Queensland, Australia), while others have deferred all academic activities (e.g., the Oxford University, UK). In Romania, the situation was dramatic during the lock-down period, all universities had to switch to online teaching, which took them unprepared, both teachers and students. The study purpose is to identify the perception / opinion of university teachers from Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi (Al.I. Cuza) and from Gheorghe Asachi Technical university of Iasi (Gh, Asachi) regarding the effects of pandemic COVID 19 for their teaching and learning. The Statistical Package for Social Science Program (SPSS) was used to summarize and run correlation on data obtained from the survey. Therefore, we conducted a comparative study between 2 universities in the area of Moldova, to see the opinion of teachers related to online teaching at that time and its negative effects.