Impact of Covid-19 As a Pandemic on Various Industries: A Conceptual Paper

Pandemics always create dreadful effects not only on human life but also drastically influence businesses and industries. Historical evidence has apparently indicated that the outbreak of Spanish flu, SARS, MERS, and Ebola viruses, all created radical impacts on businesses around the globe, leaving behind the economic structures into miseries and deprivations. Similar is the case of COVID-19 outbreak which instigated from China and dispersed all over the globe. In Pakistan, the first case was reported in March 2020 and since then the government has relentlessly tried to impose lockdown and social distancing in order to avert the harm. It has been substantiated that the public isolations and lockdowns have not only yielded negative impacts on the economy but also on different forms of business and employment. Therefore, this study is aimed to analyze potential impacts of COVID-19 on different forms of industries in Pakistan through gathering the public opinion as the source of data. The study is one of the preliminary studies therefore it is based on descriptive design in order to show perceived impact of outbreak of virus. Results indicated that the pandemic is harmful and affecting most of the business in negative manner however there are some businesses which are burgeoning on opportunities emerged from the pandemic and attaining growth due to the spread of the virus.

Use of Locally Available Materials in Teaching Science

The concept of employing the locally available materials in teaching Science is emerging as a popular and worthwhile teaching learning strategy in building the conceptual understanding of students. It has a number of strengths, but the way it helps students construct on their own previous knowledge is valuable, and it also enables them to be the scientists of their own world. The purpose of this research was to see whether the locally available teaching materials or teacher-made materials could be utilized to teach the concepts of acid and base to secondary level students. It was undertaken with two research participants, who are comparatively less experienced, considering interviews, post-lesson conferences, observations and document analysis. Collaborative action research was employed in conducting this research study. All the interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed, and all the data was analyzed and categorized to achieve the themes. It was evident from the study that the research participants found the strategy and approach of locally available teaching materials constructive and interesting for their workplace learning, professional development and teaching learning. They thought that it was a useful micro level curriculum innovation for their professional development, and their simple efforts could make effective use of everyday material in their teaching. They found that collaborative work was central for its successful implementation, and it helped them a lot but costed nothing. The study further reveals that if teachers are facilitated and provided support, the concept of locally available teaching resources in Science, in Pakistani contexts, could be effective and productive. The research study has made some recommendations to include and emphasize the use of locally available materials in both pre-service and in-service training courses. It, further, suggests schools managements to ensure the on-going professional support at school level to novice teachers, so that it can boost their confidence level and working spirit.