Impact of COVID 19 on Education System

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was firstly identified in Wuhan city, Hubei Province, China in December 2019 as a pneumonia of unknown origin. Later, the international committee on taxonomy of viruses (ICTV) identified the causative agent of COVID-19 as a novel coronavirus, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus−2 (SARS–CoV−2). COVID-19 outbreak spreads rapidly not only in China, but also worldwide, therefore, the World Health Organization (WHO) has announced it as pandemic on March 12, 2020. COVID-19 pandemic has affected all levels of the education system. Educational institutions around the world (in 192 countries) had either temporarily closed or implemented localized closures affecting about 1.7 billion of student population worldwide. Many universities around the world either postponed or cancelled all campus activities to minimize gatherings and hence decrease the transmission of virus. However, these measures led to high economical, medical, and social implications on both undergraduate and post graduated communities. Due to the suspension of classroom teaching in many colleges and universities, and switch to the online teaching for undergraduate and graduate students becomes effective. However, many students have no access to the online teaching due to lack of either the means or the instruments due to economical and digital issues. There are no studies investigating the effect of COVID-19 on students in medical field.