Linking online business education and academic excellence: outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic

The outburst of COVID-19 epidemic has enforced the higher education sector to revamp customary mode of teaching and assessing students learning. This study is a portrayal of online education and intended to critically examine how online education during COVID-19 fostered a combination of favorable and unfavorable outcomes which might disrupt and redesign academic routine process. Data were collected from professors, associate professors and rectors affiliated with higher education system through focused group discussions and semi-structured interviews. The interpretivism paradigm analysis was performed to examine the data using qualitative methodology. This study delivers a comprehensive review of enduring online education mode through the lock-down tenure. It outlines details on how quality of education was ensured through online teaching-learning process, E-portal access, self-reliant technological system, online assessment, and quality standards. Findings delineated that higher education sector converted challenge into opportunity without wasting students semester and facilitated them in achieving academic quality, thereby overcoming the continuous academic distortion and subsequently ensuring the renewal of educational procedures. Results also reported numerous challenges faced by teachers and management in delivering quality education. This research refills the existing gap by adding to the literature on online education from the perspectives of key academias concerns during the COVID-19 epidemic. It also provides practical implications to governing bodies and policy makers of higher education sector