Learning Remotely during a Pandemic: Are Students in a Developing Country Fully Equipped with Tools for Swift Changes?

Adoption of Online Education and Pedagogy as New Codes of Life for New Future in Rural Regions

The COVID-19 pandemic threw the education system out of gear worldwide. This crisis calls for fundamental reforms and strategic planning to continue education. There are other factors, like pedagogy of care, adoption of emergency remote teaching methods, training of teachers, and assessment strategies. This paper examines teachers’ professional competencies working in secondary schools in the rural areas of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. The paper investigates how distance teaching and learning are adopted, problems encountered for the same, and modes of assessment used. Data was collected by adopting a qualitative survey design, using a holistic case design to understand qualitatively complex events from the participants’ perspectives. Data were obtained from 122 teachers working at schools in different regions of the TRNC (Nicosia, Kyrenia, Famagusta, İskele). The findings revealed that although the teachers found the distance education process exhausting, they found ICT helpful. Further, teachers reported that distance education was the best training process in the current pandemic situation. Difficulties were reported to increase students’ motivation and prepare appropriate materials for the lesson. They used teaching methods, such as question and answer, narration, fun videos, whiteboard, and online test application techniques.