A Systematic Review of African University Student’s Learning in the Era of COVID-19 Pandemic: Lessons from China

Abstract

Over one billion students worldwide were severely impacted by school closures predicated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Most reviews have focused on developing countries with established infrastructure supporting e-learning. This contrasts with many African countries struggling to provide their students with the financial and structural support they need during this unprecedented time. This literature review examines Africa University Student learning during the COVID-19 era. A literature search was conducted on the Web of Science and EBSCO for relevant studies published from 2020 to 2021. The search terms include COVID-19, university student, learning, and higher education. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were used in selecting the final 58 articles. Our analysis found that Africa benefited from e-learning by acquiring technical skills and developing proactive coping strategies. However, the benefits are undermined by challenges associated with restricted access to technology, poor institutional policies, disruptive environments, and emotional turmoil. We learned that the representative Asian country, China, invested in multiple online teaching methods and focused on improving awareness of e-learning. These strategies enabled China to go back to school quickly after the lockdown. Future research should include all the scientific databases to obtain comparable results.

Acceptability and perception of COVID-19 vaccines among foreign medical students in China: A cross-sectional study

“…Vaccination is more effective, even the first shot is good enough to reduce the spread of COVID-19 ( 25 , 28 – 30 ). The result shows good acceptance and perception, but other studies had poor knowledge and positive perception among those respondents ( 26 , 27 , 30 – 33 ). Our study depicted that based on the adequate information provided to the students, it boosts confidence, ensuring convenience and reduced complacency for vaccine acceptance and hesitancy, and this is consistent with the WHO-SAGE 3-Cs model ( 32 , 34 ).…”

“…The relevance of the survey among foreign medical students' acceptance or otherwise of the COVID-19 vaccine may play a significant role in the general international students since they have adequate knowledge and information on the vaccine composition matrix in China. This may also be relevant to the WHO-SAGE method, which states that countries should use the Convenient, Complacency, and Confident (3-Cs) ( 33 ) model in the COVID-19 vaccine administration worldwide. The 3-Cs approach seeks to boost and break barriers to accepting the COVID-19 vaccine across all social groupings, such as foreign medical students ( 34 , 35 ).…”

The Effects of COVID-19 on Tertiary Institutions in Ghana: The Case of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA)

“…The encouragement of physical distancing and lockdowns to tone down the spread of the corona virus epidemic brought in its wake a major disruption in the educational sector. This therefore resulted in switching from the in-person mode of education to the online/emergency remote mode [27,10,2,57,13,63]. Earlier writers have acknowledged that whereas emergency remote teaching may be a temporary response to a pandemic like COVID-19, the online mode on the other hand involves careful arrangements to create an effective learning ecosystem [28,13].…”

“…Earlier writers have acknowledged that whereas emergency remote teaching may be a temporary response to a pandemic like COVID-19, the online mode on the other hand involves careful arrangements to create an effective learning ecosystem [28,13]. It is worthy to note that teaching and learning in the midst of the epidemic can be analyzed through the prism of opportunities and challenges [36,10]. The ensuing discussions turn attention to these two important issues i.e.…”