Distance Education During the 2020 Global Crisis Lockdown

South-West University “Neofit Rilski”, Faculty of Economics, Department of Economics, 2700 Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria

^* Corresponding author: b_dimi@abv.bg

Abstract

Research background: Distance education in Bulgarian universities is a relatively new form of human capital training, applied until recently on a limited scale. The global 2020 health and economic crisis, related to the mass lockdown of the in-person educational process throughout the world, has imposed a new challenge to the anti-crisis management of the universities, schools and other educational institutions in Bulgaria: the obligatory application of the distance learning process. For the optimal development of the educational systems in the conditions of similar future crises, it is necessary to have various information about the impact of the crisis on the different groups of educational institutions and especially about the response of the students.

Purpose of the article: This article aims to highlight the identified problems and challenges that distance education is facing and to provide recommendations for its future optimization to individual learners and educators, as well as to the educational institutions themselves and third stakeholders.

Methods: The method of self-administered survey, conducted through Google Forms and the descriptive method, through which the authors of the article share their observations of the educational process, conducted during the lockdown, were used.

Findings & Value added: Main findings include the pre- and after- lockdown levels of technical armament of the respondents, specifics of the loans taken for its provision, the forms of online training used and the personal assessment of the respondents for their effectiveness, the difficulties encountered during the educational process.