RE-INVENTING THE IMPACT OF COVID-19 PANDEMIC WITH RESPECT TO PARADIGM SHIFT IN DIFFERENT AREAS OF INDIAN HIGHER EDUCATION

COVID-19 pandemic has impacted different sectors of India, viz. economy, entertainment, religion, sports, transport and employment etc. Education is not an exception of that. The human civilization had never experienced such a turmoil situation in last hundred years before the outbreak of Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-pandemic. COVID-19 pandemic has impacted different sectors of India, viz. economy, entertainment, religion, sports, transport and employment etc. Education is not an exception of that. Educational institutions (schools, colleges, and universities) in India till early 2020 were based only on traditional methods of learning, that is, they follow the traditional set up of face-to-face lectures in a classroom. Although many academic units had started blended learning, still a lot of them were stuck with old procedures. The sudden outbreak of the deadly disease called Covid-19 caused by a Corona Virus (SARS-CoV-2) shook the entire world. The World Health Organization declared it as a pandemic. This situation challenged the education system across the world and forced educators to shift to an online mode of teaching overnight. In Indian context at least 320,713,810 students of different levels of education are affected out of which at least 34,337,594 students belong to higher education sector. Due to COVID-19, different aspects of Indian Higher Education sector witnessed drastic changes. In this paper the paradigm shifts in Indian higher education sector and their future prospects are discussed with some suggestive remarks in conclusion section.