This study is an initiative that was born in this particular context of the COVID-19 pandemic, both the Salesian University of Bolivia and the Salesian College of India were affected, like all higher education institutions in the world, by the closure of face-to-face classes to avoid contagion among the members of their communities, therefore, forced to migrate to the educational format mediated by technological and virtual tools. Although this modality of education originally meant an obvious response to the closure of educational institutions, the initial challenges were great: Among them, the speed and access to attempts, accessibility to types of devices to attend classes and prepare tasks, familiarity and management of desktop software, access to resources and on-line content and the initial complexity of virtual learning platforms.

This study attempts a description of how these challenges were present in the change from the traditional educational modality to a virtual one, presenting quantitative data collected through surveys of the students themselves and educational experience in a sui generis context. A peculiarity of this study focuses on the comparability of two geographically distant institutions – the Salesian College located in the north of India and the Salesian University of Bolivia in the heart of South America. However, despite the obvious geographical distance, both institutions share the Salesian charism of Don Bosco, an educational charism widely spread throughout the world and known for its mission of providing education with a predilection for young people, especially those less favored.

The authors of this study considered that a comparative work on how both institutions faced change and their challenges from face-to-face classes to virtual classes would be a way to contribute to the reflection of the educational realities experienced by two geographically distant, but charismatically equal institutions.

Background of both institutions

The Salesian University of Bolivia (USB) and the Salesian College of India are two higher education institutions belonging to the Salesians of Don Bosco. Although both are geographically distant and in two different continents, share the Salesian charism of Don Bosco and mission: “promote the integral development of the young through assimilation and critical elaboration of culture and through education in the faith, you look to the Christian transformation of society” (Salesians of Don Bosco, 2015, p. 122) ; Likewise, both belong to the worldwide network of Salesian Institutions of Higher Education (IUS).

The USB is a higher education institution founded in 1998 by the Salesians of Don Bosco, with the aim of providing access to higher education to those sectors of the Bolivian population that did not have the possibility of entering public universities due to the limitation of their quotas, nor to other private universities due to the high costs they established. In the management 2020, the USB has around seven thousand students in undergraduate studies and another thousand in postgraduate programs. Its headquarters are located in the city of La Paz and it has six branches authorized by the Ministry of Education in the cities of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Cochabamba, Camiri, Monteagudo, San Carlos-Yapacaní and Yacuiba. The geographical location of the USB responds fully to the Constitutions of the Salesians of Don Bosco, which determines the Salesian centers are located in popular sectors; thus, the Salesian presence in higher education seeks to be a response for the less favored people of the popular sectors of Bolivian society.

Among the main characteristics of the profile of USB students, it is highlighted that 72% of them are first-generation students, which means that neither the father nor the mother have completed university studies. Another important aspect to highlight is the geographical location of households from which students come; for example, at its Headquarters, 87% of the students come from the four poorest districts of the municipality of La Paz. Another feature is related to the occupation of parents, 50% of mothers have a related occupation with washing, toilet, services, housewife or similar and, on the other hand, 60% of the male parents work as a skilled worker, taxi driver, micro-entrepreneur, salesperson, unskilled worker, or similar (Chambi and Murillo, 2018).

Its current Rector is Fr. (PhD.) Juan Pablo Zabala sdb, who from the beginning of his administration in September 2016 began a series of transformations along with the strengthening and consolidation of the academic programs and other fundamental tasks of the USB.

For its part, the Salesian College of India is an institution of Higher Education founded in 1933, has two campuses, one in Siliguri and the other in Sonada, West Bengal. It holds a grade of “Accreditation A”, awarded by the National Assessment and Accreditation of India (NAAC) and twice certified as a college with potential for excellence. The Fr. (PhD.) George Thadathil sdb is the Rector (Salesian College, 2020).

The Salesian College has a rich history and legacy associated with its founding. This was recently documented in the book entitled “Salesian College – a history that speaks today“. It tells that the Salesian College was established in Shillong in 1933, but in 1938 it moved to Sonada. It gradually grew to fill the role of a premier educational institute serving the needs of students in the hills and surrounding areas, opening undergraduate courses in commerce, humanities, and other professional programs. In 2009, the College established its expanded campus in the town of Siliguri, which is located at the foot of the hills, about thirty miles from the main campus. This campus of rapid expansion offers undergraduate courses in commerce, humanities, and sciences with professional and vocational courses. Starting in 2016, the College has also started offering postgraduate courses in English, Education, and Psychology. This campus is primarily aimed at students from Siliguri, other parts of North Bengal, and neighboring countries such as Nepal, Bhutan, and Bangladesh.

The demographic profile of Salesian College is quite diverse in many parameters. We serve around 1500 students from different financial backgrounds. It is important to note that a comparable number of our students are first generation students, their families hail from hill towns in the surrounding region. The economic environment of several of these students varies from poor on average. Many students from tribal backgrounds and the Doaars region also study here, having different financial backgrounds. Being a minority institution, Salesian College offers underprivileged students a quality education. Capable and talented students, lacking financial resources, find here the opportunity to grow and learn.

The migration from classroom to virtual teaching

As a consequence of the pandemic that has characterized the 2020 administration, countries around the world have taken the necessary health measures in order to protect their societies from massive contagion. Some countries declared states of health emergency translated into curfews, confinements, social distancing, and suspension of mass acts. According to a report by the World Bank Group (2020), the COVID-19 pandemic would have at least two significant impacts: “i) the closure of schools almost in the entire world and ii) the economic recession that ensues. It produces measures which aimed at controlling the pandemic. These two impacts, the report continues, can have both short and long term consequences, both on human capital and well-being. In the short term, a reduction in learning is expected with an increase in dropouts, as well as the impact on the nutritional, mental and physical health of students, especially those who live in unfavorable socio-economic conditions (World Bank Group, 2020).

In this context, educational institutions were among the first to be affected as a measure to prevent contagion, given the need for social distancing and the prohibition of massive activities and in closed environments. “Almost overnight, schools and universities around the world closed their doors, affecting 1.57 billion students in 191 countries” (IESALC, 2020, p. 5). The impact was not minor and educational institutions were faced with the challenge of taking measures that give continuity to the training of their students. In the case of higher education institutions, the suspension of face-to-face classes meant an inevitable migration to the educational format mediated by technological and virtual tools, this response was almost immediate; However, the immediacy, the limited experience and the wide digital and technological gap exposed the disadvantages and latent social inequalities in the different countries, much more acute in developing or less industrialized countries, where the levels of connectivity are scarce or null, and access to devices such as cell phones or computers are still a secondary or tertiary need in the set of basic survival needs.

Against this background, Institute for Higher Education of Latin America and the Caribbean, (IESALC, acronym in spanish, 2020) raised some challenges that higher education institutions must inevitably address: On the one hand, this crisis is a clear call for universities to be at the forefront of the necessary transformations, which means looking for the appropriate mechanisms to give continuity to training despite the adverse situation; on the other hand, the new panorama forces to ensure the right to higher education in a framework of equal opportunities and not to leave any student behind. A task that is not easy to tackle, especially in realities where the digital and technological divide is acute and resources are limited.

This new context or new panorama as IESALC calls it, forced countries and institutions to take actions to ensure the continuity of pedagogical training. IESALC as international institution above mentioned, that warned potential risks and challenges in times of pandemic generated a series of guidelines for institutions of higher education take on the challenge of being at the forefront of the necessary changes and ensure no waste to education. Thus, both the Salesian College and the Salesian University of Bolivia, had to face the challenge and take action before the closure of their facilities due to the health emergency, opening an opportunity for migration to the educational format mediated by virtual and technological tools.

In the following paragraphs, it is described in a very general way how the Salesian College and the Salesian University of Bolivia addressed the migration of their face-to-face courses to virtual platforms, based on the confinement announced by the governments of both countries.

From confinement declared by the Government of India on March 14 this year, the first three months of teaching virtual at the Salesian College has insisted that teachers and students are on the same platform of the College, LMS Moodle, this had their own video platform BBB (Big Blue Button, for its acronym in English), which is necessarily used at the beginning. In addition to videoconferencing, the Moodle platform offered other activities for the design of the courses; therefore, the College administration insisted that everyone familiarize themselves with the platform. However, connection issues for a large percentage of their students prevented easy access to BBB and if for some reason they were disconnected due to poor connectivity or other reason, reconnecting to the system was very tedious, because they had to at least perform three steps to reconnecting to the class. To overcome this difficulty, in the last month, the College has subscribed to GSuite, it offers, among others, video conferences online through Google Meet. The lectures are being recorded and the links are published in the LMS (Learning Management System) for the purpose of designing courses and teaching records, which can be viewed again by students.

In Bolivia, the government decreed a national health emergency on March 12; consequently, face-to-face educational activities were suspended. An instruction from the Ministry of Education opened the possibility of virtually continuing educational work in institutions that have the necessary means. The USB decided to enter to online format by taking advantage of the license of the MS TEAMS platform, whose use until that moment was occasional and scarce. Given that the interruption of the face-to-face classes was abrupt, reestablishing contact with the students was an intense task, but with the help of the course representatives and their own organization through their WhatsApp groups it was possible to communicate the determination of the continuity of their studies. Another important task was the organization of training sessions for teachers in the management of the TEAMS Platform. As for the students, we initially had the idea that their assimilation of the TEAMS management would be intuitive, but that idea was not completely correct and difficulties were identified in their new learning environment. Although these difficulties could be overcome with the accompaniment of teachers and career directors, the biggest problem was the availability of devices and the high costs of internet connection. An alternative to help the students was to record the classes and send them by WhatsApp.