https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1880-2012
ABSTRACT
This qualitative research examines how Nigeria, Seychelles, and South Africa applied technologies to mediate the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on their education systems. The research demonstrates that sociocultural and institutional factors, and attitudes of stakeholders, rather than technological access, significantly determined the countries’ capacity to transition tertiary institutions online at the height of the pandemic. It expands the understanding of the role of institutions and policies in the adoption of education technologies. The research findings are expected to inform the articulation of relevant policies and system-wide strategies for resilience and antifragility in case of future societal disruptions.
Though the magnitude of the impact of COVID-19 on learning and teaching is yet unknown, many studies have already been conducted on the transformative and disruptive impact of the virus on the education landscape in Africa. A search for “COVID-19 and education and Africa” in a university online library (www.lib.asu.edu) one evening in July 2021 produced 4,359 peer-reviewed journal articles available in “fulltext online” formats. Most of the studies describe the immediate impact of the pandemic on schools and the various national interventions to reduce systemic disruptions,1 as well as technological inequities, including those related to information and communication technologies (ICTs).2
The assumption in much of the emerging literature is that the availability of technologies by themselves would have made a significant difference in mitigating disruptions in the education systems of African countries.3 This echoes the technology transfer discourse of development theorization of the 1960s.4 The argument then was that the infusion of external inputs, such as the right technologies in the newly decolonized countries, would lead to development regardless of the sociocultural and institutional contexts.5 It has since been acknowledged that the transfer of technologies by itself was not a sufficient instrument for development.6 Current studies7 on the impact of COVID-19 on the education systems in African countries seem to revamp this old assumption.
Such assumptions ignore the role of sociocultural attitudes and specific institutional frameworks to mediate the outcomes of technological interventions. Furthermore, emerging studies on COVID-19 and education in Africa have either focused on primary and secondary levels of education8 or have framed the discussion in a manner, which assumes that schools of all levels and types of ownership (public or private) encounter the same challenges and, therefore, intervention efforts were also similar.9 Studies that focus on higher education are overwhelmingly discipline-specific, such as medical education,10 nursing education,11 teacher education,12 mathematics,13 neurosurgery,14 social work,15 and journalism.16 These studies are also technology-centric in the argument that access to technical resources was a significant determinant of the degree to which tertiary institutions in Africa managed the effect of the shutdown on teaching and learning. In its survey of the impact of COVID-19 on education in selected African countries, Human Rights Watch17 chronicled stakeholders’ narratives of the impediments to remote learning presented by poor access to technologies. Even in situations where “low technologies,” such as the radio, were harnessed, the experience was different for students across the continent. A parent reported that he had no radio while another said that she could not afford a “big phone” (smartphone) that supported access to online class materials for her children. Most stakeholders complained about the cost of connectivity, generally referred to as “data” in many African countries. Although the challenge of access to and cost of the technologies cannot be minimized, this research departs from the well-trodden technological terrain to address the sociocultural and institutional contexts in which decisions are made about technology adoption in education and attitudes toward online education in general. This study also focuses on the specific challenges encountered by postsecondary institutions in three African countries: Nigeria, Seychelles, and South Africa.
The overarching proposition in the current research is that while there were indeed technological challenges, sociocultural and institutional factors, such as perceptions and attitudes to online education and policy guidelines, had a more significant influence on how some countries responded to the impact of the pandemic on their education systems. Research18 shows that even in situations where the availability of technologies was not a concern, universities and colleges were shut down with no effort to transition to remote learning. In some cases, policies and a narrow framing of what constitutes learning and teaching constrained schools with sufficient technological capacity for online education from adopting e-learning platforms;19 (personal accounts of research participants). To explore these issues, the following questions will guide this research:
What role did sociocultural and structural factors have on decisions to adopt (or not) technology interventions in the education systems during the lockdown?
How did stakeholders’ attitudes toward online education influence the management of the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on education systems?
Stakeholders refer to parents, students, educators, and policymakers.
This article is organized into six sections, including this introduction. The next section features some background and an overview of the literature on the history and evolution of distance learning, public perception of and attitudes to online education, and the impact of COVID-19 on education in Africa. The third section covers the research methodology and analytical framework, whereas the fourth section focuses on how three African countries managed the impact of the pandemic on their education systems in 2020. Recommendations and prospects for future resilience and antifragility are discussed in the fifth section followed by the conclusion.
Background and Literature Review
Internet-mediated education has been an integral fixture of the education landscape over the last two decades.20 Indeed, it can be argued that technology-enabled education is as old as humanity itself, or at least since the invention of writing (in all its forms) activated record-keeping and the ability to transmit information across time and space.21 As a more organized way of disseminating knowledge, distance education is, therefore, not a modern phenomenon.22 The University of Chicago began offering distance education as far back as the early 1800s to bridge the literacy gap between urban and rural America.23 In postcolonial Africa, distance learning flourished among the new class of civil servants who sought to advance their career prospects but could not afford full-time university study, which often involved traveling out of the country. The first university in Nigeria, University College, Ibadan (now, the University of Ibadan), was founded in 1948 as a University of London campus.24 It was not until 12 years later, in 1960, that the first indigenous university, the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, was established as part of the activities marking the country’s independence from Great Britain.25 With the fervor for Western education and eagerness to participate fully in the governance of the new sovereign nation, many enrolled in the “London Correspondence College (LCC),” a name that became associated with distance learning.26 This probably referred to the University of London, which established its external or long-distance program in 1858, or the Open University of London, established in 1969.27 The latter has spawned National Open Universities in many countries, including Nigeria, where at least 14 federal universities are currently offering distance education in one form or the other.28
The correspondence course involved the mailing of materials and assignments to students who did the required coursework, posted them back to the United Kingdom, and waited for the next module. Certificates and degrees were issued on completion of the program but there was little or no interaction between student and teacher. As with online education in the contemporary era, certificates and degrees earned from the “LCC” were not accorded the same recognition as those from brick-and-mortar universities. Indeed, it was common for a traditional university graduate in Nigeria to belittle an LCC colleague by bragging about his/her “real” degree.29
The disdain for distance education has carried over to the era of fully online degrees, such as those offered by many accredited institutions in the United Kingdom and the United States. This was compounded by the scandals of “degree mills,” for-profit online universities in the United States, for which students were coerced into applying for loans for degrees that were never awarded.30 Some of the awarded degrees were from illegitimate or nonaccredited institutions thus, rendering them worthless while students were burdened by the costs and debts.31 Indeed, one university was so notorious for these activities that its name became synonymous with “diploma mills” even when some of its students had worked as hard as their counterparts in “conventional universities” to earn their degrees.32
The scandals that rocked “degree mills” institutions in the mid-2000s unwittingly concealed the emerging popularity of distance education, particularly for adult learners and professionals. The allure of Executive MBA and leadership programs were mushrooming with most learners converging in expensive resorts for weeklong in-class interactions.33 Most of these programs were supported by third-party platforms and content generators, such as textbook publishers and other for-profit organizations offering technology-mediated educational content, though reputable universities were not absent from the fray.34 Still, the “degree mills” implosion ironically highlighted the advantages of technology-mediated education especially when quality was not sacrificed at the altar of profits. This created the space for conventional universities to enter the multibillion-dollar online degree industry by offering fully online degree programs with the imprimatur of their brands. Even some of the highly ranked universities (frequently referred to as Ivy Leagues) in the United States started offering online degree programs alongside noncredit Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs), often serving as gateways into credit-earning degree programs.35 Soon, online education gradually earned public respectability.36 It was not long before a field of discipline in online education and educational technologies, complete with associations, conferences, books, and journals, emerged.37 The 2020 global pandemic completed the legitimization of online education.
As countries went into lockdown, universities and colleges with established online learning platforms quickly expanded their capacities. Late adopters of online learning technologies were compelled to innovate from scratch or upgrade existing online depositories to robust learning management systems (LMS). By the summer of 2021, e-learning (online education, remote learning, or distance learning) had become the norm, at least in the United States and other industrialized countries. Remote learning had become so pervasive that students and parents were expressing some reluctance to return to in-person classrooms even as reports about the effects of isolation on students’ mental health were on the rise.38
Technologies enabled schools and certain kinds of work to continue relatively uninterrupted in many industrialized countries. While the process was not seamless due to inherent structural and social inequalities, various sectors of the population fared much better than resource-poor countries did. Most of them shut down completely as their technological or institutional capacity imploded.39 Even in places where the technologies were available, attitudes about the quality of online education by policymakers and accreditation agencies deterred school administrators from transitioning to remote learning and teaching.
One of the most extensive studies on the impact of COVID-19 on the education systems of African countries was conducted by E-Learning Africa/EdTech Hub, an organization that routinely investigates the experiences and opinions of a large group of people involved in education and technology in Africa. In its 2020 survey, it sent questionnaires to various stakeholders (teachers, lecturers, policymakers, technology experts, and investors) in 52 African countries. While many of the 1,650 respondents reported that the pandemic created an opportunity for their countries to invest in online and remote learning, they also identified major barriers, such as access to technology and learning materials, and the nature of the home environment.40
Mhlanga and Moloi41 also tracked the impact of the lockdown on the educational sector in South Africa and the response by policymakers and international nonprofit organizations. Mukute et al.,42 using results from interviews with 56 parents, students, and educators, described the challenges and opportunities for education systems in southern Africa. They concluded that COVID-19 stimulated an appetite for developing educational innovation, namely, integrating ICTs into the teaching and learning processes. The focus of this study on the responses of individuals (students, parents, educators, policymakers, and other stakeholders) adds a useful human dimension to a general understanding of the impact of COVID-19 on teaching and learning processes. It also highlights some of the strategies that different countries adopted to weather the impact of the pandemic on national education systems.
Research Design, Methodology, and Analytical Framework
This research study aimed to examine six African countries from three regional economic communities (RECs), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the East African Community (EAC), and the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC). Two countries (the most populous and least populous) were selected from each REC: South Africa and Seychelles (SADC), Nigeria and Cabo Verde (ECOWAS), and Kenya and Burundi (EAC). This selection method was aimed at providing a broad geographic spread of the issues and concerns related to COVID-19 and education in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The initial design included personal interviews with the ministers of education or their representatives in each of the countries. This approach was expected to provide a more nuanced and personal perspective to the research. Accordingly, e-mail messages were sent to five of the six countries. (No contact information was available for Burundi.) Nigeria and Kenya did not respond despite repeated e-mail messages. An official from South Africa who responded said that the minister’s schedule was too full for a sit-down interview. He asked for an e-mail list of questions. This was sent and repeated two more times but there was no further response. An official from the Embassy of Cabo Verde in Washington, D.C. offered to provide contact information for the minister of education but there was no response to follow-up e-mail messages. The interview request to the Minister of Education in the Seychelles Republic was forwarded to Dr. Linda Barallon, Head of the COVID-19 Task Force for Tertiary Education Institutions, who agreed to a one-hour interview on Zoom. Much of the information on Seychelles is generated from that interview, which occurred on July 5, 2021. One notes that of the six countries, only the Seychelles minister of education, Dr. Justin Valentin, had his official e-mail address publicly available for direct contact. He also had a visible and active presence on social media.
In passing, one notes that other means of communication—such as phone calls and traditional letters—were considered but eliminated for various reasons. First, many of the officials and agencies contacted had neither mailing addresses nor phone numbers on the government websites. One country had a P.O. box address on its official website alongside the official e-mail address. With no response to numerous e-mails, it was inconceivable that surface mail would receive attention. Several phone calls were made to the Washington, D.C. Cabo Verde Embassy but there was no response. Second, and more importantly, reaching education officials of the six countries by analog communication methods would have negated the conventional assumptions in ICT4D theory and practice about the plethora of benefits of ICTs in bridging distance and time and accelerating advances in all societal spheres, including education. Additionally, the lack of response to e-mail requests, for whatever reasons, could be considered an indicator of the degree to which those who make decisions about education at the highest level themselves trusted ICTs to mediate the impact of the COVID-19 shutdown on their education systems or facilitate basic communication with members of the public. There is a caveat, however. Given the enormity of the impact of the pandemic on all aspects of society and the additional pressure on administrators or their staff, checking or responding to e-mail messages would not have been a top priority. This was even more so when such messages (such as requests for interviews) offered no immediate solution to the crisis.
With the absence of responses from all the education officials contacted, Kenya, Burundi, and Cabo Verde were eliminated from the study. Nigeria and South Africa remained in the research because copious data from primary and secondary sources were readily available online for South Africa. For Nigeria, 100 students enrolled in five private and public universities across the country were contacted through social media and WhatsApp groups of students from different colleges and universities. These platforms were strategically chosen because students were dispersed across the country as a result of the shutdown. However, those who had access to the technologies interacted with each other on these forums and it was, therefore, easier to send a set of questions to them. The following information was requested from the students: a) Has your university transitioned to remote learning? b) If so, what has been your experience? c) If not, how has the shutdown affected your time-to-degree? A total of 33 students participated in the survey and their responses are incorporated in the Nigerian section. Additional data, particularly concerning the status of ICT usage in Nigerian universities before the pandemic, are drawn from related research conducted by the author in Nigeria in 2019.
The research analysis is anchored on a three-tier digital divide framework adopted by Mpungose43 to explain the South African response to the impact of COVID-19 on the country’s education system. The framework is rooted in an explanation of the digital divide (the gap between technology haves and have-nots) as offered by earlier ICTD scholars, such as Richard Heeks and Robin Mansell. The result was the formulation of three levels of the digital divide or “contextual dimensions of social inequality” by Richard Heeks.44 These dimensions are: divide in access to technology, divide in the adoption of technology, and divide in the use of technology.45 In a more recent study, Heeks applied this model to the concept of “adverse digital incorporation” as an explanation of how inclusion in the digital system “enables a more-advantaged group to extract disproportionate value from the work and resources of another, less-advantaged group.”46 This provides a more nuanced understanding of the socioeconomic inequalities that digital inclusion creates especially in resource-poor contexts. These inequalities bubbled to the surface during the pandemic even in societies with relatively abundant resources.47 Nevertheless, the formulation of the three-tier framework is more appropriate for this research even as one acknowledges its Heeks provenance. The first tier examines inequity or a divide in access to basic digital ICT devices, artifacts, and contents. The second tier captures a digital divide in attitude and skill sets. The third tier examines a divide in the understanding of the outcomes and benefits of online services and technology usage. This framework facilitates the explanation of how Nigeria, Seychelles, and South Africa managed the impact of the COVID-19 shutdown on their education systems and offers lessons for the future.
For each country, the first tier employs ranking on the United Nations (UN) E-Government Development Index (EGDI), a biennial project of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) that captures three dimensions of ICT use: scope and quality of online services (Online Services Index), status telecommunication infrastructure development (Telecommunications Infrastructure Index), and human capital (Human Capital Index).48 Analysis of the second level of the digital divide is based on statements from research participants generated from both primary and secondary sources.49 The third level examines official policies that demonstrate national-level expectations and narratives about the role of ICTs in education.
COVID-19, School Closures, Technological Interventions, and Country Strategies
There is a long history of Internet presence in many African universities.50 Over the years, as technology advanced, more applications evolved, the cost of access dropped, and usage became more sophisticated. Universities in Africa also moved from accessing the Internet as a means of communication (e-mailing) in a single unit (IT center) through expert intermediaries (IT personnel) and expanded the utility of the technology. Thus, many African universities were already using at various levels of sophistication, some form of LMS before the COVID-19 pandemic. For instance, Covenant University and the American National University (both in Nigeria) and the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa had long adopted learning systems, such as Moodle, Blackboard, and Canvas. However, many of these universities used the platforms merely as depositories of digital resources. At Covenant University, for instance, Moodle was a resource for instructors to store lecture notes, assignments, and postgrades but teaching was fully face-to-face in the classroom. A similar level of usage occurred at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa.51 These LMS were considered nice add-ons with little educational value. As a result, faculty members were not required to be proficient in online teaching processes. In addition, there was insufficient policy or guidelines for online teaching.52
On the part of students, those who had access to ICTs used them as tools for personal communication or social networking rather than as mechanisms for achieving educational outcomes. As a result, when the pandemic compelled a global shutdown, many universities in African countries were unprepared to utilize ICTs effectively and efficiently in their education systems. However, some fared better than others. In the following section, we review how stakeholders in three African countries managed the impact of the COVID-19 shutdown on their education systems through the use of ICTs. The focus is on tertiary institutions.
Research Findings and Analysis
Nigeria
With a population of 201 million,53 Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa, with more than 250 ethnic groups and 2,500 languages and dialects. It has about 200 public, regional/state, and private universities and colleges, and a student enrollment of 2.1 million in 202154 or about 46 million when students in other postsecondary institutions are counted. When the global pandemic hit in 2020, the immediate concern for policymakers was not on these students but on secondary school students. This was the sentiment expressed when on March 19, 2020, the Federal Ministry of Education issued a press release ordering the immediate closure of its 104 unity schools. These are secondary schools—grades 7–12—directly administered by the federal government. The shutdown mandate for postsecondary institutions came later with a final shutdown of the country’s education system by March 26. The closure was expected to last for one month but ended six months later when schools reopened nationwide in October 12, 2020.55
While the closure was a national response to a global health crisis, the implementation varied by state and the type of educational institution. There are 82 federal universities and polytechnics, 99 state universities and polytechnics, and 163 private universities and polytechnics in the country.56 The impact of the closure on different groups of students also varied often depending on the ownership of the institution (public or private). Nearly all public universities shut down though this had little to do with COVID-19 because the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) had already announced its intention to embark on a labor strike on March 23, 2020.57 For many faculty and students, the COVID-19 shutdown was some sort of vacation period with no pay (for the faculty) and extended time-to-degree for students. Students in some private institutions fared slightly better though in varying degrees, as survey responses from 33 students enrolled in five universities demonstrate.
One of the universities is the Moshood Abiola Polytechnic in Abeokuta, a public institution that went into total lockdown. A student from the university reported that “due to the large number of students in the school, the school wasn’t able to do anything when it comes to having lectures online.”58 She missed the irony: an online learning platform works best for large classes depending on the curriculum. Perhaps, she was conveying the information that the school gave to students and families. Students at other public institutions, such as the University of Uyo and the University of Lagos, reported the same experiences. Covenant University, a private university and one of the more technologically endowed institutions in the country, also shut down during the first phase of the pandemic. This was unexpected because the university had long invested heavily in technologies and most of the student body has laptops, tablets, and extensive virtual learning experiences through the Moodle platform. When it appeared that the lockdown was indefinite, the university offered classes on Zoom. However, as some students reported, this “eventually failed because there are over 9000 students in the school . . . and are spread out in different parts of the country.” Another student added that:
The information about the Zoom classes was not properly sent, so we can say it didn’t get to all the students. Also, both the lecturers and the students were having network challenges. Meaning a class that’s supposed to hold 40 minutes or so will maybe hold for 20 or less. Let’s call it a waste of time. A lot of students were also not able to attend the class even when the network became better. This is as a result of the lack of data to access the internet.59
On a national scale, Nigeria ranks 141 (out of 193 countries) on the 2020 EGDI. About 73% of the population are Internet users with 16.1% of the population active Facebook users. On the surface, these numbers indicate that access to the Internet was adequate for the student population to, at the first tier, reach platforms. Of course, the numbers do not include the issues of device sharing and the fact that limited connectivity may enable basic online activities but lack the bandwidth for data-intensive interactions. However, even at this level, it might have been possible for private and public universities to transition to remote learning following the shutdown if their telecommunication infrastructure was already well-established. From the responses of students surveyed for this research, the conclusion is that second level of access was a critical determinant of universities’ responses to the shutdown. In places where the technologies were present, teachers lacked the skills, interest, and/or willingness to provide online instruction. The unwillingness factor was reinforced by the nationwide no-work protest by instructors, lecturers, and professors in public universities under the auspices of their trade union, ASUU.60 Even before the COVID-19 closure, teaching and learning in all public universities in the country had already ceased.
For faculty in many of the private universities, efforts to offer online classes were constrained by the regulations and definition of university education by the National Universities Commission (NUC), the authorizing agency for universities in the country responsible, in part, for quality assurance of academic programs offered by Nigerian universities. Private universities are expected to operate within the traditional notions of what constitutes quality education. For instance, one of the private universities attempted to offer summer courses to students but the NUC reportedly canceled the program with the explanation that a bachelor’s degree is a four-year degree program and could not be accelerated for early completion.61 Similarly, students who spend a semester studying abroad return to their home universities to repeat the semester; the credits earned overseas are not recognized by the NUC. During the 2020 shutdown, Covenant University asked families to pay for Coursera packages freely available online. On its website, it announced that the partnership with Coursera would facilitate student access to “3,800 online courses (spanning) engineering, business, data science, health, and arts . . . available in weekly modules with video and reading lessons . . . quizzes and peer assignments, and learners (would) receive a certificate upon completion of each course.”62 And yet, on return to school, students were required to repeat the courses that they had taken online through Coursera. For these students, their four-year programs became extended by one year due to the inability or unwillingness of the university to offer classes online or to legitimize the third-party online courses that students were compelled to purchase.
Examined through the three-tier digital divide framework, the management of the impact of the shutdown on the Nigerian education system demonstrates a poor understanding of the role of technology in the education process rather than the scarcity of resources. At the end of 2020, teledensity was 107.18%, or 107 telephone lines for every 100 inhabitants, broadband penetration/subscription rate was 39.4% and 73% of Nigerians had access to the Internet through various devices.63 Yet, tertiary institutions did not transition to online teaching and learning as universities in the global North did during the shutdown. Also, there is no specific policy on the integration of ICTs in the education process. Indeed, the skepticism about the validity of online education handicapped the capacity of those institutions that attempted to provide this as an alternative to in-person classes. A top education official in one of the states threatened to withdraw the operational license of schools (public and private) and prosecute “defaulters” for transiting to online classes. He was quoted as saying: “No school both (private or public) is authorized to start the 3rd term school year, either in school environment or online” until the government was ready to announce the reopening of schools.64 The official said that this was in the interest of the safety and health of students but did not specify how online learning from the safety of students’ homes exposed them to health risks.
One argues that the three levels of the digital divide (access to the technologies, human capacity, an understanding of the role of technologies in education, and the validity of the online learning platform) intersected to create a significant adverse impact on the country’s education system. Though the country is not as technology-rich as some countries in the global North, statistically, there were enough ICTs to keep classes open virtually. To some extent, there were also sufficient skill sets, especially in private universities, which, as noted earlier, boast 21st-century technologies on their websites. The major hindrance was the institutional and societal framework as manifested in the absence of specific policies or guidelines to encourage and legitimize online learning. There was no national effort to create stability in the education system and those that attempted to do so were discouraged by government officials.
South Africa
In South Africa, the country’s 26 public universities began to shut down on March 18, 2020.65 Many of the universities were already in some kind of shutdown as a result of national student unrest and protests for reforms.66 The pandemic shutdown was expected to last for 21 days but was extended to three months as the number of COVID-19 cases rose. South Africa, a country of 60 million people, is one of the most ICT-connected countries on the continent, rated third in Africa and 78th globally (out of 193 countries) on the 2020 UN EGDI. This indicates high levels of integration of ICTs in the country’s administrative processes. Also, a survey conducted by Statistics South Africa indicated that 75.9% of students had access to smartphones, 36.1% to tablets, and 61.2% to laptops, and ownership of radio was 27.9% and television (TV) was 53.3%.67 These were devices and channels through which distance learning could occur when physical learning was impossible. Nevertheless, many tertiary institutions in South Africa encountered the same challenges as those in resource-poor countries in sustaining teaching and learning during the pandemic.
In the first instance, while some universities could provide free access to connectivity and devices, students who resided outside the perimeters of the universities were left out thus, creating a subtier of access. This was a prevalent problem in a country where some 34% of its population live in rural areas (and 75% for all of Africa).68 There was also the issue of skills, especially in a system where the in-person and hierarchical learning models continued to dominate the education system. Third, many ICT users tended to view technologies as tools for communication and social connections. For that reason, even those who had access to ICTs and adequate skill sets were unable or reluctant to reconfigure them and their mindset for educational purposes.
At the national level, the absence of clearly defined policies on remote learning resulted in different universities improvising a variety of processes while many simply shut down. Institutions that switched to online learning included the University of Johannesburg, the University of Cape Town, and the University of Pretoria.69 They, too, encountered a significant skills gap as many faculty members were unable to convert their in-person teaching processes to the online modality, and training was not provided for them. Where there were crash courses on online teaching, they were too hastily done to be effective.70
The hardest hit during the period were predictably students in rural areas.71 As in many places, but especially in African countries, online learning is generally less accessible to rural dwellers. In normal times, people in rural areas access the Internet in public spaces, such as a local library. But these places were also shut down, thus increasing the frustration of rural students. Meanwhile, lecturers expected that students would submit assignments by due dates as if everything was normal. Many students spoke about constant distress at the avalanche of notifications about assignments even though they had no access to the online materials and were, therefore, not positioned to do assignments.72 As a result, most of the students resorted to “correspondence course” mode with a reliance on the postal service, even as its operations were also significantly impacted by the pandemic.
Seychelles
The experience of COVID-19 and the response to its impact in Seychelles were significantly different from those of other African countries. It is one of the smallest countries in the world, with a population of 100,000. An archipelago of 115 islands located on the Indian Ocean, it was far removed from the center of the pandemic. However, as a tourist destination, government officials stayed current with global events and trends. As soon as COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, officials created a national testing and quarantine center and were thus, able to identify the first (two) COVID-19 cases before the virus could spread. A married couple who arrived from Italy three days earlier were housed in the national quarantine location where they tested positive for COVID-19 on March 14, 2020.73 Five days later, on March 19, 2020, the country announced the first of many shutdowns. By the end of 2020, Seychelles had recorded 202 cases—and its first COVID-19 death occurred in January 2021.74 Although the shutdown was both a response to global trends and the reality of the first two cases, concern for the health and safety of citizens was not acute until June and July when the number of cases spiked and another shutdown was announced.
Initially, the pandemic was framed by policymakers exactly for what it was: a health issue.75 Strategies were focused on implementing the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines and global best practices. Early childhood and secondary schools were expected to observe the health guidelines. As the shutdown became necessary, the Ministry of Education provided materials on its website to facilitate remote/online learning and ensure the continuation of education.76
Soon, it became apparent that COVID-19 was not just a health problem but that its impact would permeate the education system in very significant ways. In recognition of these ramifications, the government set up a task force in the Ministry of Education to coordinate with the Ministry of Health. The task force had three subcommittees, one for each of the three levels of education (primary, secondary, and tertiary). Members were asked to plan and decide when the schools would reopen physically. Protocols for testing and contact tracing were created. The task force and other government officials kept the public regularly informed on the process, especially on decisions about shutdowns and reopenings. According to Barallon,77 “when all the structures were put in place, we went on TV and announced the reopening or explain why we were not ready to reopen” a particular sector. Indeed, the country closed down at least three times between March 2020 and early 2021 when the number of cases rose despite the country having the brief honor of being the most vaccinated country (at about 60% of the population). In each phase of the shutdown and reopening, various schools were affected but there was no period when tertiary institutions shut down completely. The logic was that learners in tertiary education were adults and would be mindful of the health guidelines. Also, most learners at this level were enrolled in programs that required experiential learning, especially for professional licensing and certification.
The country has two universities and 10 professional training centers. Seven of the centers are managed directly by the Ministry of Education along with the universities. The professional centers are nondegree awarding institutions created by the Ministry of Education to “provide instructions for learners to acquire the relevant qualifications in vocational, technical, technological and applied scientific subjects.”78 The University of Seychelles is the main university in the country. While it shut down, it was able to provide remote learning to students through partnerships with external agencies, such as the University of London. Dr. Barallon explained that:
The university is well equipped with Microsoft Teams and Zoom for online learning continuation. Also, the University of Seychelles has links with the University of London through virtual classrooms connection and Microsoft Teams. There was therefore no particular time during the closure when learners could not access any of that program.
Also, the professional centers continued to operate in various ways to reduce disruptions in students’ time to graduate. There were adequate (and safe) provisions for learners whose curriculum included practical applications and exercises. For example, learners in the Seychelles Maritime Academy were able to do their practical work, which involved going out to sea during the shutdown. Generally, the small number of institutions enhanced the capacity of administrators to design specific strategies that achieved the twin goals of keeping classrooms open virtually while also observing health and safety protocols, according to Barallon.
Unlike many other countries on the continent, Seychelles has a social safety net. Besides the provision of learning materials to students and encouraging students to supplement their learning with resources, there was the relative ease of access to education technologies, such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom. Material resources, such as books, online educational resources, and financial subsidies, were also available to the citizenry in ways that allowed families to provide a conducive learning environment for their children and thus, mitigate the impact of the shutdown on their learning.79 The size of the country and population, as well as the availability of these educational and social services and resources, were critical in the response to the pandemic. Also, the country had most recently managed an outbreak of the swine flu80 and seemed prepared to deal with the next pandemic following the roll-out of COVID-19 vaccines, it ran and achieved an effective vaccination program, a feat that earned it the reputation of being the most vaccinated country per capita—though that had changed by May 2021 when a sudden surge in infection rates hit the country.81 Beyond these issues, however, the two factors that were critical to the effective management of the impact of COVID-19 and the shutdown on the country’s education system in Seychelles were the presence of an ICT policy framework and a high degree of ICT availability. One could not work without the other. That is, it was not enough for citizens to have access to the technology without policies concerning their applications to the education context. Invariably, policies on ICT education would be ineffective if citizens do not have access to the technology.
An analysis of the response by Seychelles to the impact of COVID-19 on education through Mpungose’s three-tier digital divide framework (2020), itself based on a previous model by Heeks, shows that the country fared better than many other countries on the continent for three reasons: because citizens had access to the technologies, the skills to use them, and stakeholders demonstrated an understanding of the value of ICTs in achieving educational outcomes by drawing on an existing policy framework.
First, the country ranks 76th in the world (out of 193) and #2 in Africa on the 2020 EGDI. At the end of 2020, Internet penetration in the country stood at 79% of the population.82 The number of mobile connections at the end of 2020 was 174% of the population.83 In addition, school curricula were made available to students of all levels on the website of the Ministry of Education.
Second, human capacity and skill sets for online education did not seem to present many challenges. Schools were already engaged in some form of technology-enabled teaching and learning before the pandemic. At the University of Seychelles, most of the classrooms were connected to virtual meeting platforms, such as Microsoft Teams, Google Hangout, and Zoom. Indeed, through affiliation with the University of London, students at the University of Seychelles were already engaged in some form of online or distance learning. For this university, therefore, the transition to online classes was almost seamless. The country also adopted a hybrid modality to ensure that students in tertiary institutions, especially those enrolled in professional training centers, did not lose the required clock or credit hours that might delay their graduation, licensing, or certification.
Third, education officials not only encouraged schools to transition to online education, but also actively coordinated the process through a task force that liaised with the Ministry of Health. While COVID-19 was a health problem, officials understood early on the potential impact on the education system and took strategic steps to mitigate the damage. The country’s social safety net ensured that families that suffered economically from the shutdown had some income to create a conducive environment for their children’s education.
In addition, a preexisting policy on ICT in education had established resources and technological assets that made the transition seamless, while also validating ICTs as tools for teaching and learning. A policy is a “commitment of the authority to the vision, mission, principles, goals and objectives expressed in a document which an organisation adopts for a given area and strategically intends to implement.”84 The key document is the ICT in Education and Training Policy—2014–2019, produced by the Ministry of Education with support from the Commonwealth of Learning. The policy followed the launching of the country’s information technology master plan in 1999, just three years after some African countries met in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to formulate the African Information Society Initiative (AISI) Framework. In the forward to the ICT Policy, the Minister of Education at the time, MacSuzy Mondon, wrote that:
The Ministry of Education has made considerable investments, in collaboration with local and international partners, at the level of both government and private, in various aspects of the integration of Information Communications Technology in education and training and its institutionalisation within the Ministry. Whilst much has been accomplished through these initiatives, we recognise that considerable challenges remain. This Policy reaffirms the engagements of the government.
The policy laid out a framework for ICT integration in the country’s education system and it consisted of the following:
Education Management Information Systems (EMIS)—“Centralized computerized system designed to organize information related to education and training.”
Education Portal—a repository of education services, training resources, education news, and curriculum resources.
ICT—provision of computers, Internet access, broadcasting technologies (such as radio and TV) phones, and portable devices for education.
Learner-Centered Education and Training—a student-centered approach to education such that the interests of other stakeholders, such as teachers and administrators, are not more paramount.
Learning Areas—a more comprehensive learning curriculum that supports specialized education and lifelong learning.
OpenCourseWare (OCW)—recognition and acceptance of authentic course lessons available online for open and free access.
UNESCO ICT Competency Framework for Teachers (CFT)—the framework informs “educational policymakers, teacher-educators, providers of professional learning and practicing teachers on the role of ICT in educational reform (while also assisting) Ministries of Education in developing national ICT competency standards for teachers” (p. 7).
In summary, Seychelles used everything at its disposal, including radio and TV broadcasts, to ensure the continuation of learning. For places where electronic access was not feasible, course materials and lessons were mailed to learners scattered across the 115 islands. While the general cynicism toward distance learning persisted among some of the policymakers, the opportunities that education technologies offered were not ignored. For instance, an official whose son was enrolled in a UK university’s online degree program was ambivalent about the quality of instruction but agreed that it was a better option than if he were not in school at all.
Discussion, Lessons for the Future, and Policy Recommendations
Research on ICT diffusion and usage in African countries often focuses on the lack of access to the technologies even as the rate of digital connectivity continues to rise.85 While the level of Internet penetration is still below 50% of the population, the rate of growth between 2000 and 2021 was 13,058%.86 Indeed, access to the technologies remains a major challenge but an expansion of the definition of the digital divide beyond basic access is necessary. It facilitates an understanding of how and why the three countries in this research managed the school closures in the manner that they did. Beyond access, acceptance of e-learning as a veritable platform of education would compel governments to provide the same resources to students who choose a different learning modality, namely remote learning.
The process begins with clear policy guidelines and implementation. With such a framework, the provision of technological resources—namely, Internet connectivity and access devices—would follow naturally. An intentional effort and recognition of the value of other kinds of education modalities would generate innovative strategies to mitigate the impact of a pandemic on the education systems. It is simply not sufficient to have the technologies unless they are deployed deliberately to achieve national goals in all sectors. The formulation of policies is a necessary condition for achieving such outcomes.
The Seychelles experience is instructive on three levels. First, planning matters. Many African countries have “development plans”87 often running in multiple-year ranges of 5, 10, or 20. While most of the plans are quickly abandoned, especially when a new administration takes over the leadership of the country, they have stated objectives, timelines, and strategies. Most are based on current circumstances and rarely account for the imponderables; thus, they fail to survive disruptions to the status quo. For instance, many development plans in Nigeria fail when the price of oil, its major export, drops.88 One acknowledges that COVID-19 was an unprecedented tragedy and it would have been difficult for countries to prepare for its global disruption. Still, Seychelles was able to build quickly on existing structures established during previous health crises. A key lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic for countries is that they cannot afford to return to the prior status quo. They must begin to create structures that will ensure resilience and antifragility during future disasters, regardless of the sources (health, environmental, or cultural).
Country Data and Education During COVID-19 Pandemic Shutdown
| Country | Population | Number of Universities1 | Date of Pandemic Shutdown | Response to Shutdown/Strategies for Resilience | Pre-COVID-19 Institutional and Technological Capacity2 | Challenges to Online Education | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 EGDI Global Ranking (out of 193 countries) | Policy on ICT and Education | ||||||
| Nigeria | 201,000,000 | 90 | March 19, 2020 |
| 141 | Data not available |
|
| Seychelles | 100,000 | 2 | March 19, 2020 |
| 463 | Information Communications Technology (ICT) in Education and Training Policy—2014–2019 |
|
| South Africa | 60,000,000 | 26 | March 18, 2020 |
| 78 | Existing proposal to provide online education in all schools |
|
| Country | Population | Number of Universities1 | Date of Pandemic Shutdown | Response to Shutdown/Strategies for Resilience | Pre-COVID-19 Institutional and Technological Capacity2 | Challenges to Online Education | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 EGDI Global Ranking (out of 193 countries) | Policy on ICT and Education | ||||||
| Nigeria | 201,000,000 | 90 | March 19, 2020 |
| 141 | Data not available |
|
| Seychelles | 100,000 | 2 | March 19, 2020 |
| 463 | Information Communications Technology (ICT) in Education and Training Policy—2014–2019 |
|
| South Africa | 60,000,000 | 26 | March 18, 2020 |
| 78 | Existing proposal to provide online education in all schools |
|
Notes:
Public universities
Measured by: a) the United Nations (UN) E-government Development Index (EGDI) for 2020 and, b) the presence of policy on technology-enabled education to demonstrate government recognition of online education before the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown. These indicators provide fairly objective measures to evaluate the country’s technological and institutional capacity for online education.
The relationship between the high EGDI ranking for Seychelles and the country’s response to the pandemic shutdown should be understood in the context of its small population, the number of universities, and preexisting policy on ICT-enabled education.
Second and more specifically to the education system, policymakers need to recognize the value of online/distance education as a gift and necessity. It is a gift offered by advances in ICT. The technologies were cast as tools to solve real problems. With the rise of the discourse on ICT for development (ICTD) in the 1990s, much was made about the utility of the technologies to enhance access to education through long-distance learning and the availability of online content, especially the Open Educational Resources (OER). These were expected to achieve the goals of inclusive and equitable access to education and quality content. However, as noted in a 2017 UNESCO Report on ICT for education, “despite the explosive growth of digital technology, many developing countries have not fully benefited from technological innovations due to their local infrastructure.”89
Technology adoption in education is a necessity not only in times of pandemics, but also in skilling African students for the 21st century and beyond. It is, therefore, imperative for African Governments to support and promote the utilization of technologies in education to transform and enhance teaching and learning. As noted by the president of the Nigeria Computer Society, Adesina Sodiya, “the future of education lies more in the adoption of blended learning, complete smart classrooms, virtual universities, collaborative degree programmes, video learning, assistive technology.”90 To succeed, there is a need to create awareness among teachers and learners who provide professional development activities related to technology to update their skills and knowledge, and offer technical support when needed. The expectation of ICTs to expand access to education also aligns with the objectives of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) #4: Inclusive, equitable, and quality education and promotion of lifelong learning opportunities for everyone.91
A key strategy to achieving these goals is anchored on the formulation of specific national policies that deliberately promote the integration of ICTs with quality education by creating new assessment tools and redefining the concept of quality learning. For instance, one private university in Nigeria grades physical attendance in class. Students who do not meet the 75% minimum attendance bar fail the course regardless of their performance in exams and other assignments. Such an assessment tool might be adjusted for the online environment such that submission of assignments and participation in asynchronous discussion forums would replace requirements for physical attendance.
Third, and more importantly, there is a strong need to redefine what constitutes “quality education.” The reluctance by accreditation agencies, policymakers, and education administrators to accept online or distance education accentuated the degree to which education systems were impacted by the COVID-19 shutdowns. In Nigeria, many college students will now take one year longer to graduate. While the situation in many Western countries was not perfect and students encountered unique challenges of socioeconomic inequalities and general well-being,92 the effect on their education trajectory was minimal. Most of them were able to transition online and instructors converted/adapted their in-person curriculums to the online platform, and learning continued. Thus, unlike in many African countries, graduation dates were not changed, even as the students attended the ceremonies on Zoom.
Conclusion
While current research on this subject focuses on technological challenges to explain why tertiary institutions in Africa were unable to transition to online education during the shutdown, this study concentrates on how sociocultural and institutional factors presented greater obstacles. The salient factors are human capacity and attitude, that is, ICT skill set and public cynicism about online education as credible learning platforms; and understanding of the capabilities/potentials of ICTs in education, aside from social communication, as indicated by the presence or absence of policies on ICT and education. As noted in the methodology section, the research began with the intention to study the impact of COVID-19 on the education systems of six countries. Three countries were dropped from the research due to the difficulties in accessing relevant primary data at the education policy level. This challenge partly illustrates one of the key arguments of this study: sociocultural and institutional factors constituted significant determinants of the adoption of ICTs to support education systems during the shutdown in 2020 even as access to the technologies themselves remains a critical factor.
The education ministries have official websites, contact information, and (presumably) connectivity to the Internet and e-mail access. Messages were sent to the official contact e-mail addresses, as well as to e-mail addresses in the countries’ embassies in the United States. Several factors, some of which are enumerated previously, hindered the robust collection of data on the interactions of technological availability and human capacity. The latter, as this research demonstrates, is critical to a deeper understanding of the extent to which technologies were utilized in the education sector of the three countries included in this research.
Given the paucity of comparable data for all countries, it would be incongruous to make a case for a correlation between officials’ responses to requests for interviews and the level to which their education systems were resilient to the disruption of the pandemic shutdown. However, it must be noted that the one country, Seychelles, where officials responded to the request for an interview, reported a robust ICT utilization and policy framework for ICT in education. Also, it proved more effective in ensuring the continuation of learning at all three levels of education because a higher percentage of the citizens have access to ICTs, and officials indicated a willingness to accept online classes as veritable platforms. Furthermore, the country had an established policy on ICT and education with specific strategies to make online course materials available to students at all levels and to offer training to educators. The intersection of these factors as well as its relatively smaller size and population enhanced the capacity of Seychelles to mitigate the adverse impact of the 2020 shutdown on its education system. While Seychelles experienced some unique challenges, such as its topography as an archipelago and insufficient human resources to coordinate the various dimensions of managing the pandemic, its experience can be scaled up for adoption by other countries on the continent.
Finally, these findings address the research questions on how sociocultural factors and stakeholders’ attitudes toward online education influenced decisions and policies on the continuation of teaching and learning during the COVID-19 shutdown. In a country, such as Seychelles, with prior policies on online education, the transition to online education was almost seamless. There was also general acceptance of online education as a viable alternative to in-classroom learning. This research, therefore, extends the discussion on the potential of ICTs to facilitate development by outlining how nontechnological factors pose critical challenges and, therefore, solutions, to the integration of technology into the education systems in African countries. Access to ICTs is not sufficient to drive growth in the education sector (as well as other segments of society) during or postpandemic. Political will and informed policies and human capacity are also needed.
FOOTNOTES
Examples are Owolabi; Mukute; Burt et al.; Mhlanga and Moloi; Association for the Development of Education in Africa.
Pratt.
The Association for the Development of Education in Africa.
McIsaac and Gunawardena.
Inkeles and Smith; Gajjala and Mamidipudi.
Stamp; Akpan-Obong; Asiedu.
For instance, Amri et al.; E-Learning Africa; Partey.
Human Rights Watch; Oyinloye.
Nwokeocha; Mukute et al.
Ossai and Ogbuoji; Adepoju; Bayram et al.
Regmi and Jones.
Gawronski.
Naidoo.
Cheserem et al.
Tanga et al.; Ndhlovu and Tanga; Amadasun.
Brunner and Mutsvairo.
Human Rights Watch.
Ifijeh and Yusuf; Regmi and Jones.
Odey.
Ozdemir and Abrevaya; Bray et al.; Bates.
Groves and Zemel; Bates.
Major.
Shaimaa; Nigeria Education.
Tamuno.
Ibid.
Personal interviews.
University of London.
Fapohunda; Nigeria Education.
Nigeria Education.
Phillips; Piňa.
Brown.
Ibid.
Amdam.
Examples include Sage Publications, Coursera, Udemy, and Khan Academy.
Atiaja and Guerrero-Proenza.
Byrne.
Ko and Rossen.
Margolius et al.
Dorn et al. See also Hoyt et al.; and Katz et al.
E-Learning Africa.
Mhlanga and Moloi.
Mukute et al.
Mpungose.
Heeks.
Ibid.
Heeks.
Bowleg.
The EGDI database is used to ensure that the information is fairly even across the different countries.
The data from primary sources are those obtained from interviews with research participants. The research also generates data from news reports, published documents by the various government agencies and published research.
Akpan-Obong.
Naidoo.
Mpungose.
World Bank.
Idoko.
Ettang; Reuters.
Nigerian Universities Commission.
Ewuzie and Chukwuma.
Personal interview.
Personal Interview. “Data,” as used in Nigeria, refers to prepaid credit purchased from mobile phone service providers to enable connectivity to the Internet on mobile devices and computers.
Adedigba.
Personal Communication with the Vice Chancellor of a private university.
Covenant University.
World Bank; Nigerian Communications Commission.
Odey.
Landa, Zhou, and Marongwe.
Naidu.
United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
BusinessTech; World Bank.
Mhlanga and Moloi.
Ibid.
Landa et al.
Mpungose.
Republic of Seychelles Ministry of Health.
Worldometers; Bariyo.
Dr. Linda Barallon, Head of COVID-19 Task Force for Tertiary Education Institutions, Ministry of Education, Seychelles Republic, was interviewed in person (on Zoom).
Much of the information in this section is based on a personal interview with Dr. Barallon and documents from the Government of Seychelles website.
Personal interview.
Government of Seychelles, 14–15; Bonnelame.
Chawla.
Ernesta.
Wall Street Journal.
World Bank.
Data Reportal.
Government of Seychelles.
Silver.
Internet World Stats.
Auerbach and Mirthes; Duri; Isike and Ogunnubi.
Duri.
UNESCO, 1; Ting et al.
Ogundare, para. 5.
United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
Dahiya et al.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Author notes
This study was first presented at TPRC49: The Research Conference on Communication, Information, and Internet Policy, September 16–17, 2022.
