Public and Private University Students’ Perceptions towards Online Learning during COVID-19 Pandemic in Rajshahi, Bangladesh

This study was conducted from May 11 to September 17, 2021 on 329 male and 161 female students from Rajshahi University (RU), a public university (n=490 from 10 departments) and 130 males and 72 females (n=202 from 4 departments) from three private universities viz., Varenda University (VU), North-South University (NSU) and Asian International University of Bangladesh (AIUB). Each respondent was interviewed personally to collect desired information for the present study. A total of 1164 lectures from 82 courses and 286 lectures from 26 courses were delivered by the public and private universities, respectively. Attendance for the male and female students from RU was found to be 88.31% and 85.39% in comparison with 83.91% and 85.31% from the private universities. Irrespective of the gender, 48.77% RU students liked (L) the online method of teaching, 34.08% disliked (DL), 12.44% undecided (UD), 2.65% strongly disliked (SDL) and 2.44% strongly liked (SL) the online courses during the pandemic. In contrast, 50.00% students of the private universities liked (L), 35.64% disliked (DL), 6.44% each undecided (UD) strongly disliked (SDL) and 1.48% strongly liked (SL) the virtual courses. In RU, 60.62% males and 32.40% females used mobile phones (MP) for learning, while only 0.2% males each used laptop (LT) and desktop (DT) computers, but 6.13% male and 2.45% female respondents used both mobile phones and laptop computers (MP+LT) for their online learning. This scenario is different for the learners of the public universities, where 30.69% males and 31.18% females used their MPs and 22.27% males and 6.53% females used MP+LT devices for attending the online deliveries. Findings of this cross-sectional study revealed the public and private university students’ perceptions towards online teaching and learning during COVID-19 pandemic in Rajshahi Metropolis, Bangladesh, which might provide an essential guideline for the government policymakers, technology developers and university authorities for making better policy choices in the future. Moreover, the study might also be helpful for the policy makers such as top government personnel, ministry of higher education and University Grants Commission (UGC) of Bangladesh in designing the policies and programmes on e-learning portal success in the country.