Did the Pandemic Permanently Digitalize Higher Education in Bulgaria?

The pandemic of COVID-19 had a great impact on the educational systems in many countries, including Bulgaria. In the last three semesters, the educational process was held mostly online in the majority of the Bulgarian universities. The switch to online learning in Bulgaria was made very quickly and with no real preparation, which raised the question of whether it was effective enough. While considered as temporary, online learning continued three semesters, with the possibility of continuing even further, which leads to the question of whether the pandemic irreversibly changed higher education to a more digitalized, advanced, and practically new approach, and, most importantly: what are the perceptions of the participants in the educational process about all these unexpected changes?

The paper presents the results of an empirical online survey of the attitudes of lecturers and students toward the effects of online education, its advantages and disadvantages, and also its main problems. The sample consists of 224 students and 74 lecturers of different Bulgarian universities. The survey was made in 2021 and is a continuation of a pilot survey made during the first lockdown in Bulgaria in May 2020 by the same team.