Delivering High School Chemistry During COVID-19 Lockdown: Voices from Africa

Abstract

This paper provides glimpses of transactions in chemistry classrooms in five African countries (Burundi, Ghana, Morocco, Nigeria, and Senegal) during the COVID-19 lockdown. Members of the secondary school community in the countries including teachers, students, and school managers were unprepared for the unprecedent demand in shift from a face-to-face to an online delivery system. From a tepid, faltering start in the early days of the lockdown in Morocco, Nigeria, and Senegal, and recognizing that the end of the lockdown may not be in sight, some minuscule progress is being made in exploring virtual delivery of the chemistry curriculum. Four major challenges to online delivery of chemistry education emerged. These are a teacher capacity deficit for delivering online education, poor internet service, an erratic power supply, and severe inadequacies in infrastructure for open and distance education. Taken together along with poor teacher motivation induced by low and irregular wages, these challenges are depressants to quality chemistry teaching during the COVID-19 period. We foresee that these challenges will persist. The harsh effect of COVID-19 on the economy of all African countries is a sign that funds will be unavailable to address these challenges in the near future. A glimmer of hope can be the reprioritization of funding resources by African governments to online delivery of education, noting that blended learning will be the new normal in the coming decades.

Global emergency remote education in secondary schools during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…33% of studies (n = 27) had between one and 25 participants, which represents a higher percentage of smaller scale studies than in higher education research (16%, . Three studies did not report the exact number of participants involved (Education Scotland, 2021;Okebukola et al, 2020;Rusmansyah et al, 2021).…”

“…Over two-fifths of studies reported behavioural disengagement among students (n = 36, 44%), with absence being the most common expression of behavioural disengagement (n = 15, 19%). In some cases, issues with technology, such as problems with connectivity, were found to impact student attendance (e.g., Okebukola et al, 2020). In some other cases teachers and parents stated that students clicked on links to participate in live lessons but then became distracted with other activities (e.g., Bhattarai, 2020).…”

“…To ensure students were provided with timely feedback on their work, several studies reported a use of built-in LMS features to provide written or recorded responses (e.g., Aldossry, 2021;Kaden, 2020), or used communication applications such as WhatsApp (Budianto & Arifani, 2021;Okebukola et al, 2020). For example, one study used Formative, which was "incorporated into the course's technology portfolio at the start of remote learning for submission of all previously 'hard-copy' assignments (lab packets, quizzes, tests)" (Kelley, 2020, p. 2).…”

Exploring Household Food Dynamics During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Morocco

“…Other articles analyze the pandemic's socio-economic impacts in the kingdom (45,59). Further papers address some specific impacts of the pandemic, such as on education (60,61), transport (62), quality of life and wellbeing (63)(64)(65), and environmental pollution (66)(67)(68). Ouhsine et al (69) analyze the impacts of the pandemic on solid waste generation at Moroccan households.…”

Exploring University Instructors’ Challenges in Online Teaching and Design Opportunities during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Systematic Review

“…Unfortunately, some students cannot even attend online classes because, especially in developing counties with digital inequality, they do not have access to digital devices (Khlaif & Salha, 2020). Following the closure of schools, the rapid change from classroom to online teaching heavily influenced not only the learners but also the instructors (Okebukola, 2020). Instructors received immediate tasks in regard to "implementing distance learning modalities" (United Nations, 2020), such as having courses on online platforms, as the schools started to close due to the pandemic.…”