COVID-19

Impact on Education and Beyond

Nivedita Das Kundu, Aloysius Nyuymengka Ngalim, Nivedita Das Kundu, Aloysius Nyuymengka Ngalim

• Publisher: VIJ Books (India) Pty Ltd
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9789390439683
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Ensayos en política y relaciones internacionales

COVID-19 pandemic has created the most significant disruption of education systems that history has ever recorded in all continents. Closures of schools and other learning spaces have impacted hugely on the world's student population. The book contributes to the debate on experiences during the pandemics by portraying the virus's continued virulence, education disruption, impact on the social and economic sectors, medical concerns, and local and global responses. The book provides a variety of stimulated innovations within the education sector, approaches in support of education and training continuity, the accelerated changes in modes of delivering quality education, distance learning problems and the promising future of learning. Case Studies from different countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America have examined the massive efforts made in a short time to respond to the shocks to local and global education systems. The COVID-19 crisis and the unparalleled education disruption is far from over. So, what is the way forward? The research chapters provide experiences and new perspectives of stopping a learning crisis from becoming a generational cataclysm.

1

Classroom Beyond Borders: Teaching and Learning Strategies in Nigeria and Covenant University in the Global COVID-19 Lockdown

Sheriff F. Folarin & Olaniyi T. Ayodele

Abstract

For the first time in the world, a viral disease closes down the entire global system and collapses virtually all of human life everywhere. Unlike the Bubonic plague in the fourteenth century, Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 and the H5N1, H1N1, SARS and Ebola of the 20^th and 21^st centuries; the coronavirus (COVID-19), because of its highly infectious nature, rapid spread, fatality rates- and more probably because of globalisation- has created an effective lockdown of economies and social life of about 90% of the world, which is unprecedented in human history. Educational institutions, particularly universities, are not left out. Social distancing to stem rapid community spread and a worsening fatal situation has been considered as an effective management or containment of the disease. It is for this reason that Nigerian universities have been shuttered since the middle of March 2020. Covenant University is not an exception. The institution was on first-semester break when the lockdown commenced; hence the students were locked not only out of the campus, but also out of Nigeria, for many- some were caught up in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada and United Arab Emirates. However, the lockdown has not stopped classes as the institution, Africa’s fourth positioned University in the THE-WUR 2020 ranking, immediately activated and switched on its online platform. Zoom, contact with students on the interactive Moodle platform, Scribdle, Big Blue Button, among others, have been deployed for use or experimented with. This chapter discusses these coping mechanisms and strategies for teaching/learning, challenges faced and prospects in Covenant and attempts to identify the successes and shortcomings as far as impartation of knowledge is concerned. The participation-observation method is primarily useful, while direct interaction with colleagues and students as well as, feedback through the resources used, form the bulwark of the research instruments.

Introduction

The coronavirus pandemic locked down every facet of social life in Nigeria and the world. In Nigeria, the educational institutions, from primary to secondary schools, colleges of education, polytechnics and universities have been shuttered since the third week of March 2020. The highly infectious nature of the disease and rapid rate of spread necessitated the global lockdown of schools, organisations, pubs, cinemas, clubs, restaurants, parks and airports. The Nigerian authorities first shut down social life and non-essential movement in Lagos, Ogun and the Federal Capital Territory (Abuja). These -with Lagos leading the pack- were the initial epicentres, with the index case, being an Italian who had arrived in Nigeria two weeks earlier placed on intensive care. This was a development that warranted contact tracing and isolation of co-travellers on the flight as well as cab driver, cab driver’s family members, co-workers and others (This Day, 2020).

The weeks that followed were chaotic, with lockdowns of major airports, transport system and limitation of movement effectively bringing a halt to associational or community living. School gates were shut and resumption of students and classes was not in view. Many Covenant University students, some of whom had travelled to the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and the United Arab Emirates for the first semester holiday, were locked out of Nigeria and could not return home. After a week and the lockdown seemed indefinite, Covenant University authorities switched to the online mode and commenced the second semester, using a number of mediums and resources to ensure that there were no gaps.

As resourceful as the online teaching and learning mechanisms seem to be, there have been challenges, ranging from human to technical, which underscores the importance or efficacy of physical contacts in teaching or learning. However, it is pertinent to mention that the present circumstances are desperate, which require drastic measures, such as going fully online in knowledge impartation. As stop-gap measures, the coping strategies have been useful, although it cannot entirely be like the regular teaching modules. The chapter discusses the coping strategies in teaching and learning at Covenant University since the COVID-19-induced lockdown of Nigeria’s educational institutions. The specific measures, online tools or resources, the effectiveness of these tools and problems or challenges faced in the course of their deployment, are also discussed. The instrument of research is basically participation-observation. A number of academic staffs across the departments were randomly questioned and a proportional size of students was interacted with for feedback on the effectiveness or otherwise of the coping learning methods.

Global COVID-19 Pandemic and Lockdowns

The coronavirus disease first surfaced in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China in late 2019. The disease is popular for its swift and deadly attack on and infection of the human respiratory system. The cause is described as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Its novelty and exponential transmission across international borders made it pertinent for World Health Organization (WHO), the global public health policing body to designate it a global pandemic (Qian, Ren, Wang, Guo, Fang, Wu, Han and CPMA, 2020; WHO, 2020). The source of SARS-CoV-2 is still subject of many types of research but there are predictions pinning its source to animals and like the other coronaviruses, there is a possibility of its evolution from a virus that was previously found in animals (Anjorin, 2020). Coronavirus COVID-19 is the defining global health crisis of modern times and arguably the most threatening challenge the international community has encountered since the Second World War (UNDP, 2020). This virus is considered an existential threat, which has been linked to the infamous 1918 flu, with about 2.9 million confirmed cases as of September 2020, 196, 295 confirmed deaths and its presence in 213 countries, areas or territories globally (WHO, 2020).

The importance of physical distancing and lockdown orders in reducing the infection and death rate of the Global COVID-19 cannot be overemphasised; hence the adoption of these measures by different national governments. However, it has had a sizeable effect on socio-economic activities resulting in severe economic difficulties on national and global levels (IMF, 2020), resulting in job losses and hunger in many countries. Furthermore, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has projected a 3% contraction in global income, assuming the different measures in place help curb or reduce to the barest minimum the pacing growth of the disease globally. UN (2020) has reported a multidimensional impact of the COVID-19 with emphasis on economy, learning, survival and health. However, the global governing body puts into consideration the uneven distributional effects of the coronavirus, especially in an era characterised by extreme inequality, predicting that children in the poorest countries, poorest households would be the worst hit.

Preparedness and response to the global pandemic have differed by countries, for reasons not farfetched. At the top of the factors is the obvious inequalities in areas of economy, health, governance, to mention a few, within the international community- while some can enforce total lockdowns giving their abilities to cushion the effects of the pandemic on their economy and citizenry, some are however limited to partial shuttering (Kaplan, Frias and Mcfall-Johnson, 2020). For instance, the Canadian government backed a C$107bn bill as emergency aid and economic stimulus to assist Canadians struggling financially because of the pandemic. Countries like India and Nigeria, giving their population figures, health inequalities, widening economic and social disparities and varying cultural values face more challenges in responding to the pandemic in line with best global practice (BBC, 2020; The Lancet, 2020).

The Community of Inquiry Model of Learning (CoL) and Online Learning

There have been theories of learning espoused to understand the place of different teaching environments in the cognitive test or enhancement of the adult in tertiary institutions. The Community of Learning (CoL) model of Garrison, Anderson and Archer (2000) is opposite in the context of the paper. The CoL model identifies three distinct “presences”, namely cognitive, social and teaching components, with the submission that the three overlap and works contrapuntally. The CoL supports the design of online and blended courses as active learning marketplaces of knowledge, where teachers and learners interface. The CoL underscores the efficacy of online learning structures with the argument that as long as “social interaction” takes place (where there is a “presence”), the platform is a social community and learning can flow. This position is further strengthened in another study (Anderson, Rourke, Garrison and Archer, 2001) in which they argue that where there are discussion boards, blogs, wikis and video conferencing to set up and simulate a virtual space for a social interface between instructors and students, learning is as “social” as it can be in the physical classroom.

This model and argument are embraced by many scholars in the Information Communication Technology and Computer Science/ Engineering departments. Academics in these fields at Covenant University push to the limits the case for virtual classes and have in some cases, even long before COVID-19, advocated the use of online resources to teach in the entire semester. They had advocated learning by students from the halls of residence and teaching by lecturers from anywhere and writing of examinations only in a physical space (University Senate, 2018).

This study is not particularly interested in strengthening or otherwise, the position of online learning or teaching. It rather focuses only on what the coping online resources or strategies in this COVID-19 have been at Covenant University and how effective they are. The theoretical perspective of CoL merely underscores the growing importance of online-based learning in an age driven by information technology and how this has fitted the Covenant University context.

COVID-19 and the Nigerian Educational Sector

The outbreak and proliferation of the COVID-19 across global borders have had a multidimensional ripple effect on different countries. At the core of this is its severity on the health, economy and educational sectors (Oyetimi and Adewakun, 2020). Most national governments have embarked on the temporary closure of educational institutions. These nation-wide closures in about 186 countries (UNESCO, 2020) have impacted over 90% of the world’s student population, which amounts to about 1.2 billion affected learners (73.8% of total enrolled learners). The localised closures implemented in other countries have further restricted access to education for additional millions of learners.

The world is fast embracing technological innovations in the form of e-learning and other remote access collaborative platforms to cushion the effect of the COVID-19 on countries, especially for continuity of educational activities. UNESCO has set a new standard and recommended its adoption for schools to employ distance learning programmes, open educational applications and platforms to reach learners remotely (UNESCO, 2020). The Federal Ministry of Education in Nigeria granted approval for the closure of Nigerian institutions for a one-month period on 19 March 2020, having recorded eight (8) confirmed cases of coronavirus in the Federal Capital Territory (Abuja), Lagos, Ogun and Ekiti states. This closure was timely and in line with best global practice at the time, as it was one of the initial approaches to curbing the spread of the virus globally (EiEWG Nigeria, 2020).

Migration to the digital space to continue educational activities should not be so difficult given that the world is currently driven by Information Communication Technology (ICT) and also considering the key objectives of the Nigerian national ICT policies, which primarily aims to convert Nigeria into a knowledge-based economy (National ICT Policy, 2012). The challenge, however, rests on the lagging nature of ICT development in Nigeria especially in areas of internet access, affordability and literacy. According to NCC (2019) Nigeria had recorded an estimated 122 million internet users and 33.13% broadband penetration as of May 2019. These figures, however, are low in comparison with countries who have relatively high levels of access to the internet in most developed countries and other regions, including Africa. Average access rate in North America and the Caribbean is 76.2%, Europe 80.2%, South America 65.3%, Oceania 69.6% and 47.0% in Africa (Leaning and Averweg, 2019).

Even though leading private institutions like Covenant University, Bowen University, among others, which are mostly ICT-driven institutions have immediately proceeded to internet-based learning, it is worthy of note that Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), the apex body of the Nigerian academic community embarked on an indefinite strike from 23 April 2020. This was after the expiration of its initial warning strike, which was as a result of their rejection of the Nigerian government’s decision to enroll them on the Integrated Payroll and Personal Information System (IPPIS), a government’s accountability software newly integrated into public institutions to manage the personnel payroll (Adedigba, 2020). The Ministry of Education, on the other hand, has commenced broadcast of educational programmes on major radio and television channels to further bridge the gap created by the scourge of the coronavirus pandemic and help basic and elementary school students to continue learning while at home (Mustapha, 2020). However, the difference in migration to online space in lower levels of education between public and private schools is also conspicuous. Unlike the Federal Government’s plan to resort to broadcast learning, private schools have resolved to a totally different approach. Oyetemi and Adewakun (2020) reported that Greenspring’s School, a notable British academy in Nigeria made an early decision to shut down and move all its early learning processes online. It is thus evident that many private institutions at all levels are prepared or equipped for the best global practice in online learning, which is mostly the use of remote interactive learning platforms.

Classroom Beyond Borders: Covenant University’s Coping Strategies

Covenant University’s resumption for the second semester in the 2019/2020 academic session was slated for 20 March 2020. However, this was disrupted by the COVID-19 outbreak and Federal Ministry of Education’s order to shut all academic institutions across Nigeria for an initial one-month period (EiEWG Nigeria, 2020). Being a foremost citadel of learning in Nigeria and Africa and ranking somewhere bet...