Research pick: Higher education from home - "Wellbeing and work productivity of Indian educators during imposed online teaching in higher education institutions"

The move out of the classroom and into the realm of online teaching driven by the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the practices and wellbeing of teachers enormously. Work published in the International Journal of Work Organisation and Emotion, considers the problems that have arisen in the Indian higher educational system.

Sheelam Jain of the Vignana Jyothi Institute of Management in Bachupally Hyderabad, Telangana, India, explains the abrupt shift to virtual lessons and remote learning caused by the emergence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the ensuing global pandemic had many disparate effects on wellbeing and performance. She has surveyed a sample of more than 200 teachers in Indian higher education institutes and found that good work-life integration, psychological wellbeing, and organisational support were the saving grace for educators thrust into these new, remote roles.

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected everyone in one way or another. It has killed millions, left many more with long-term health problems, interrupted lives, careers, and education as well as affecting, to a significant degree, almost every aspect of society and the economy. The response of governments around the world to the identification of this emergent virus in late 2019 and its rapid spread through the early part of 2020 and to this day has been very different. Some governments, such as that of India, implemented stringent lockdown measures very early in the pandemic in an attempt to control the spread of the virus, others were not to tough and perhaps suffered the acute consequences of their response.

Jain points out that the working-from-home aspect of lockdown had some benefits, particularly, in reducing the rate of spread of the virus, but it has come at a price for many people in terms of family life, psychological wellbeing, and finances. She adds that it is important in such times for those in authority to help citizens, such as educators, forced into the new normal of remote learning, to maintain their psychological wellbeing and work-life balance. How this is to be done must now be a topic of public debate among all of those affected in order to address the ongoing problems of the COVID-19 pandemic and to build resilience into our response to the next emergent and potentially lethal pathogen that sweeps around the globe.

Jain, S. (2022) ‘Wellbeing and work productivity of Indian educators during imposed online teaching in higher education institutions’, Int. J. Work Organisation and Emotion, Vol. 13, No. 1, pp.57–82.