A Study of Students' Attitude Towards Virtual Education in Pakistan

Overview & Synopsis

Virtual education paradigm has been developing as a form of distance education to provide education across the boundaries of a nation and/or country. It imparts education through information and communication technologies. In Pakistan the Virtual University of Pakistan imparts it. The main objective of the study was to evaluate the students' attitudes towards virtual education in Pakistan. The data were collected from BCS final semester students of the virtual university through questionnaire. The study revealed that virtual education is an alternate to the formal system of education. It can cater large students' body at all academic levels. It is flexible and convenient to the learners providing them exposure with emerging technologies. It integrates the nation extending the opportunities of higher education, uniform curricula, technology based instructional methodology and equal opportunities of higher education. However, students do face some problems as well. These include problems of password, computer vision syndrome (CVS), fingers' joint pain, backache, dizziness & headache and electricity failure. From the findings of the study it can be projected that in future formal universities may be adopting the virtual mode in some way. (Contains 7 tables.)