THE UNIVERSITY OF ZAMBIA

INSTITUTE OF DISTANCE EDUCATION

EDU 1020- EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT IN ZAMBIA

2020 ACADEMIC YEAR

Assignment One

NAME: MCBRIBE MULEYA

STUDENT ID: 19001114

LECTURER: NJOBVU (MR)

QUESTION: You are a proprietor managing your own private school in Lusaka. Due
to COVID 19, The Republican President Dr Edgar Chagwa Lungu
closed all Schools prematurely in term one to avoid the spread of the
disease. You are concerned about the situation and would like to use
ICT to provide the service. Identify the challenges you would face as a
school and suggest what ICT systems you would put in place to ensure
that learning takes place and explain how the system would help such a
circumstance.

[DUE DATE: 26TH MAY, 2020 11:59 PM]

Largely, outbreaks of pandemic diseases like Cholera 2018-2019 and Covid-19 (presently),
natural disasters and other unforeseeable events have affected a number of socio-economic
activities, including the education sector. To contain such pandemics, face-to-face teaching
and learning is banned, schools close and students go back to their various localities.
Knowing that Education is usually timed and planned, talking about Syllabi, Schemes of
Work etcetera, disruptions of the academic calendar poses stress and lag in the progression of
the teaching and learning cycle. As a matter of fact, according to (Mustafa, 2020) at the
middle April 2020, approximately 1.723 billion learners have been affected due to school
closures in response to the pandemic. More than 150 countries have implemented nationwide
closures, affecting about 98.4 percent of the world’s student population. This just shows how
far the pandemic has affected the normal school operations.

Like other countries, to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, government prematurely closed
schools. The closure gave birth to other challenges to various stakeholders, including
businesses. Hinging on the fact that schools are heavily calendared, as outlined above, the
biggest question according to (Mahaye, 2020) has been how learners would be able to make
up for the period of lockdown or indefinite closure of schools. The purpose of this paper,
therefore, is to identify the challenges premature closure of schools has and therefore suggest
ICT systems that can be used to make sure that learning and teaching take place, and
extensively explain how suggested ICT systems would help such circumstances.

The premature closure of schools posed numerous challenges on schools. The challenges are
in several dimensions, that is, challenges towards students, teachers, administration, learning
and teaching and assessment, etcetera. According to (UNESCO, 2020a, 2020b) the resulting
disruptions exacerbate already existing disparities within the education system but also in
other aspects of lives. These include interrupted learning and teaching, confusion and stress
for teachers, challenges creating, maintaining and improving distance learning, increased
pressure on schools and school systems that remain open, social isolation, challenges
measuring and validating learning and other administrative challenges such as report writing,
filing (profiling students records, marks etecera) .

A fuller comprehension of the implementation of ICT systems can be drawn from a further
understanding of the extent to which these challenges have affected the learning process. On
the interruption of learning, (Huang, Liu, Tlili, Yang, & Wang, 2020; UNESCO, 2020a)
identifies that schooling provides essential learning and when there is a closure, the students
are deprived opportunities for growth and development, this is the reason why learning must
continue. Secondly, the time when Covid-19 will end is unknown; this causes teachers to be

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unsure of their obligations and how to stay in touch with students to support learning. More
stress roots from challenges attached by creating, maintaining and improving distance
learning, according to (UNESCO, 2020a, p. 2) “demands for distance learning skyrockets
when schools close and often overwhelms existing portals to remote education, also, moving
learning from classrooms to homes at scale and in a hurry presents enormous challenges, both
human and technical”.

Another rather economic challenge is that the schools that close lose market, that is why
according to (UNESCO, 2020a) there is increased pressure on schools and school systems
that remain open because governments and parents alike redirect children to schools that
remain open. Additionally, students experience social isolation, schools are hubs of social
activity and human interaction. Social interaction according to the Social Learning Theory is
essential to learning and development of a student (Seifert & Sutton, 2009). On a grand scale,
there are challenges measuring and validating learning (Assessment and Evaluation or
Exams), (Huang et al., 2020; UNESCO, 2020a) outlines that calendared assessments notably
high-stakes examinations that determine admission or advancement to new education levels
and institutions, are thrown into disarray when schools are closed. Further, strategies to
postpone, skip or administer examinations at a distance raise serious concerns about fairness,
especially when access to learning becomes variable.

Due to these and other non-academic challenges, (Huang et al., 2020) postulates that at
presents, most countries have adopted various flexible teaching and learning approaches in
their education system and online education is one of the main approaches. Huang further
outlines that online learning as a subset of distance education has always been concerned with
providing access to educational experiences that are at least more flexible in time and in
space than campus-based education by utilizing different types of technologies.

Indeed, ICTs as well described by (Aboderin, 2011, pp. 15–16)

“…it covers any product that will store, retrieve, manipulate, transmit and
receive information electronically in a digital form… Information and
Communication Technology comprehends technologies that can proves
different kinds of information that is, voice, video, text, data and facilitate
different forms of communications among humans and among information
systems … with the advancement of ICT, one can live anywhere and have
access to communication”
An ICT system is a set-up consisting of hardware, software, data and the people who use
them. It commonly includes communications technology, such as the internet (BBC, 2020).

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From system perspective according to the definition, ICT systems is an integration of a
variety of ICTs (technologies) in order to create, process, store and share information.

More elaborately, (Raja & Nagasubramani, 2018) outlines that ICT has the potential to
increase access to education and improve relevance and quality, this is done through the
promotion of active learning, collaborative learning and cooperative learning, creative
learning, integrative learning and evaluative learning. A number of tools are used to achieve
these. Among others, Learning Management Systems such as Moodle, Google Classroom,
Edmodo, Blackboard. Video Conferencing tools such as Zoom, ZOHO Meeting, Google
Meeting, Cisco WebEx, Team Viewer, and others. Social Networking systems such as
Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and others; Tools for teachers to create digital learning content
such as EdPuzzle, PearDeck Trello etcetera; Tools used for online assessment such as
Quizlet, Hot-potatoes, Kahoot etcetera. There are other tools used for evaluation such as E-
Portfolio (Mishra, Umre, & Gupta, 2017; UNESCO, 2020c).

Explicitly, (UNESCO, 2020c) outlines that these educational applications, platforms and
resources help parents, teachers, schools and school administrators facilitate student learning
and provide social care and interaction during periods of school closure.

Narrowing down to the question of how these systems can help learning to continue. To
respond to specific challenges faced, each specific identified ICT systems will address
specific challenges.

With ICT systems, the problem of interrupted learning cannot prevail. Since students would
have gone back home, meaning they are far from the school, Learning Management systems
or Virtual Learning Environments can be used to reach the students in their homes.
Categorically, this mode of online learning according to (Huang et al., 2020) is defined as
learning experiences in synchronous (real-time) or asynchronous (not in real time, mostly
text-based) environments using different devices such as mobile phones, laptops, tablets,
etcetera. In these environments, students can be anywhere (independent) to learn and interact
with instructors and other students.

In line with the statements above, Learning Management systems are embedded with a
variety of tools that facilitate a fuller learning cycle. Among others, LMSs can have
assessment tools (for creating assessments like quizzes, tests etcetera), results analysis tools,
discussion forums where students can discuss a topic, or share discoveries.

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Additionally, since most Learning Management systems allow majorly text-based
interactions, real-time or synchronous Web Conferencing tools also provide learning in real
time. (Shenoy, Mahendra, & Vijay, 2020) outlines that applications such as Zoom,
WhatsApp, Hangsout, Google Meet and others provide a synchronous interaction between
teachers and students. This means that these virtual meetings cover the face-to-face
interaction. These conferencing software allow the faculty to share their screens and students
are able to follow the live presentation of a lesson. Via the camera, learners are able to read
the teacher’s facial expressions and emphasis. The teacher can also upload recorded videos
explaining concepts and learners are able to download to their devices and learn at their own
pace.

Concerning the challenges in creating and maintenance of distance learning, (Huang et al.,
2020; Shenoy et al., 2020) outlines that to effectively manage the learning process using
Learning Management systems (Distance learning tool), the platform structure the teaching
process are highly coupled, they also incorporate automatic service, such as automatic
dashboards, which can reduce the teachers and the students’ workload. LMS also has well
designed in order to provide friendly and teaching experiences to both students and teachers
respectively. In a way, this is how ICT systems can resolve this problem.

The challenge of possibilities of losing students to schools that still operate during this
COVID-19 pandemic can well be addressed by adoption of ICT systems. The argument here
is that, students will always opt for schools well balanced in the area of ICTs. The worry of
losing business can be solved by adopting ICT systems to give an institution a competitive
urge.

In continuity, social isolation is another yet another challenge. The good news is that at the
core of ICT systems is communication of information (sharing or dissemination of
information). To curb this problem, ICT systems include social networking tools. According
to (Mishra et al., 2017) social networking is built on the idea of how people know and
interact with each other. It gives people the power to share, making the world more open and
connected. This means that it is possible for students to scaffold each other and share ideas
about their courses. Besides this, they can also interact at individual level and group level.

Talking about collaborations, Blogs, Wikis, Marsh-ups etcetera can be used. For example,
blogs also called online diaries allow users to create, publish and organise their own web
pages that contain dated content, entries, comments, discussion etcetera. For educational

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purposes, Edblogs achieve and support student and teacher learning by facilitating reflection
questioning by self and others, collaboration (Mishra et al., 2017).

On the aspect of delayed assessment and challenges in evaluating the students’ learning, one
of the key challenges, (Huang et al., 2020, p. 13) says that

“… the flexibility can be indicated by the methods of assessments, such as

presentation, research papers, team projects, peer assessments, and
standardized tests such as multiple choices, match-order, short answer and
even essay type. E-portfolio is one method that can offer more flexibility
for students to update the evidence of their development and achievements.
The timing and delivery channel of assessment can also be flexible …”
Actually, it is much convenient to dispense assessments in softcopy than hard copy.
Assignments, tests, quizzes, and other forms of assessments can be assigned to students via
learning portals such as Learning Management System, Moodle for instance. On the safe
platform, the teacher is able to grade or mark assessments with ease, and there by manage to
automatically process students’ grades. This encourages motivation to learn in such times or
rather in situations where in-person learning is discouraged.

In conclusion, as clearly indicated in the discourse, the current unprecedented situation

related to COVID-19 is affecting learning at all levels. The situation has upturned course
schedules and attendance, disrupted teaching and learning, frustrated examinations and
assessments, and posed many other challenges. Despite these challenges, in some contexts, it
is clear that the crisis also provides an opportunity for the development of more flexible
learning solutions that make better use of distance learning and digital tools that is ICT
systems. Through online learning, using Learning Management System, Social Networking
sites, Web Conferencing Tools (to promote real-time communication) and others has
contributed greatly to the learning and teaching. Learning and teaching has continued despite
the closure of schools. Students are also assessed using Online Assessment tools, some of
which are embedded in Learning Management Systems like Moodle, Astria, Canvas.
Teachers are able to set exams, assignments, quizzes and other forms of assessments, as
means to evaluated learners’ performance.

Needless to say, implementation of ICT systems, whether open-source or proprietary, comes

with a number of challenges in three dimensions, that is, technical feasibility, financial and
operational

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BBC. (2020). ICT systems and their usage. Retrieved May 29, 2020, from Bitesize website:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z2c82hv/revision/1

Huang, R. H., Liu, D. J., Tlili, A., Yang, J. F., & Wang, H. H. (2020). Handbook on
Facilitating Flexible Learning During Educational Disruption: The Chinese Experience
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