Challenges and Exit Strategies for Adapting Interactive Online Education Amid the Pandemic and its Aftermath

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a catastrophic effect on education across the world. The biggest compulsory disruption in the history of education has been caused by COVID-19, which is affecting about 1.6 billion students across 190 countries on all continents. This pandemic has forced a shift from traditional face-to-face class-based systems to online teaching and learning. Educational institutions are tackling unprecedented challenges to resume education. Many of them have already started education in partial (online) or blended (online and limited on campus) mode. In this article, we discuss the challenges faced by educational institutions, teachers, and students in resuming the teaching and learning process and the preventive measures taken to mitigate the current deteriorating situation. We analyze the overall institutional setup of re-opening the learning process from the perspectives of technology and logistics (smart educational tools), teachers' initiatives, teachers' competence, and the support (mental, financial, technological, etc.) provided to students. In order to continue with institutional education, we present strategies to exit from the worst situation during the pandemic. The results of this study can guide educational institutions, teachers, and students to take the necessary measures against disasters (earthquakes, tsunamis, COVID-19, etc.) and to continue educational activities both during the pandemic and in the post-pandemic period. The outcomes of this study can also help researchers and developers to create new technologies to deal with unprecedented situations to continue learning.