Problems of distance education in the pandemic period

The relevance of the research is predetermined by one of the most difficult and pressing problems in the education this year, namely the emergency transition of educational organizations to a distance learning format in due to the pandemic and self-isolation. The research problem is caused by the collision of the education system with the unprecedented challenge of the urgent and large-scale transfer of the educational process to the online format, which exposed many permanent and new problems, while giving an «impetus» to the development of distance education in the field of higher and professional education. The purpose of the research is an overview of the problems of distance learning identified during the implementation of educational programs in online format during a pandemic and the search for ways to solve them. The research methods used are analysis, analogy, generalization. The results of the research include the description of the main difficulties and problems of distance learning during the pandemic; a number of tasks that require solutions to optimize the use of information and communication technologies in education, both in a single educational organization and in the education system as a whole; some options for solving the problems of using distance learning. Key findings are the following: the pandemic and the associated self-isolation accelerated dramatically the global transformation of the entire education system, forced complex adaptation processes in education, primarily in distance education, associated with changes not only in the forms and methods of teaching, but also in the consciousness of teachers and students, which requires further comprehensive studying both these processes themselves and the conditions for their development.