Forensic undergraduate education during and after the COVID-19 imposed lockdown: Strategies and reflections from India and the UK

Since the middle of the month of March, India and the United Kingdom have confronted an unforeseen lockdown imposed amid national and international responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the consequences of this has been that undergraduate students of all disciplines have left their campuses and either moved back to their homes or were isolated in halls of residence. However, despite some poor framing by the press [1,2], universities continued to remain open, and supported their students academically and pastorally. For India and the UK, the impact was significant but short-lived as the undergraduate semester was drawing to a close. Nevertheless, this still proved a challenge, particularly for subjects which rely heavily on practical or hands-on learning sessions. It was clearly argued why higher education should continue [3] and so significant effort was placed on urgently resolving this issue while providing a meaningful education experience for our students. For most, this meant concluding that some form of online education system was the only solution [4] in order to ensure that all students continued to have access to the curriculum.