A RESEARCH PAPER ON THE EFFECTS OF COVID-19

PANDEMIC ON EDUCATION AND THE STRATEGIES THAT

WERE ADOPTED BY THE EDUCATION SECTOR TO COPE UP
WITH THE PANDEMIC

Lecturer: Dr. Theresia Mutetei

CARLOS KENGA, BB/G0/18

SCOTT CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
05.10.2022
Abstract

The world has been experiencing a series of emerging wonders over many years ago and this is
a true evidence of the statement that “wonders will never cease”. This is because even to date,
these marvels are still happening and have given the human race a very back breaking time in
wondering how such phenomena occur and in most cases leaving the world in a very critical
condition of deprivation. Some of these occurrences include; floods, earthquakes, drought and
outbreak of deadly maladies for instance covid-19. The focus of this research will be on this
covid-19 pandemic but more specifically how it has affected the education sector as a whole.

Introduction

Actually, covid-19 pandemic has been a serious global issue that adversely impacted the human
life. There are several explanations or theories which have tried to explain the origin of this
disease. Briefly, covid-19 is an acronym of the word coronavirus disease 19, which is a disease
caused by a virus named SARS-COV-2 and was first discovered in December 2019 in Wuhan City,
China. It’s very contagious and spreads quickly with most often causing respiratory symptoms
that can feel much like a cold, a flu or pneumonia. (www.cdc.gov), (en.m.wikipedia.org)

Therefore, this study will look at the gap of how the covid-19 pandemic affected the education
sector especially the learning institutions both positively and negatively and the strategies
which were taken to curb out this pandemic to ensure continuation of learning. Also, it will lay
down a suggestion which may help educational managers and higher educational leaders to
review and adopt policies for teaching and learning even in emergency cases.

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The Impact of Covid-19 on Education

Education has been considered as one of the basic necessities in the human life. It can be
defined as the process of imparting knowledge, skills and judgment either formally or
informally through learning. Therefore, education is so essential and almost everyone is
struggling to acquire it for the hope of getting a successful life in the future since many believe
it to be the key to success.

However, with the sudden outbreak of covid-19, many people were left speechless especially in
the education sector as people didn’t know where to start from and it’s like education was now
losing meaning to them as many education programmes and activities came to a sudden
standstill.

Therefore, due to this outbreak, it’s clear that covid-19 pandemic affected education in some of
the following ways;

The negative Impacts of Covid-19 on Education

Closure and lockdown of educational institutions – most governments in this case decided to
temporarily close educational institutions in an attempt to reduce the spread of covid-19. This
further affected some of the low-budgeted and new schools which had to totally close down
their schools. Meng et al. (2020)

Loss of jobs and talents – some of the teachers and non-staff members lost their jobs due to
the closure of schools. Also, some of the talented students lacked the field where they could
nurture their talents as schools were in total lockdown.

Suffering of students – most student suffered due to the lockdown as they didn’t rely only on
education but also with some necessities like food and childcare. For instance the mid-day meal
program which helped many students. As a result some of the students developed unethical
behaviors like stealing, early pregnancies to some girls and even early marriages due to the
pressure of staying at home. This meant that even some had to quit from going back to school.

Change of school calendar and rescheduling of school activities – covid-19 led to the
postponement of national exams and the normal educational programs. For instance, the
admission process got delayed and most of the recruitment postponed. Also the placement for
students was also affected. This created confusion in the education level and most students
were stressed and anxious of remaining in school for a prolonged period of time due to covid-
19. Adan et al. (2020)

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A drop in student’s performance – covid-19 also negatively affected student’s performance as
their achievement before and during the pandemic was very different. This further led to the
drop in the school’s overall performance and records. Gonzalez et al.(2020)

Change in the mode of teaching – most educational institutions were forced to shift from face
to face mode of teaching to online or virtual teaching. This similarly posed challenges to both
schools and the students in implementing it due to lack of resources especially from the
students who lacked materials like; smartphones, limited internet access and more. Dhawan
(2020)

The positive Impacts of Covid-19 on Education

Covid-19 accelerated the adoption of digital technologies to deliver education e.g. usage of
Zoom Apps, video conferencing et cetera. This encouraged both the teachers and students to
become more technology savvy.

It led to the emergency of online learning platforms where teachers and students could access
them and learn like the Mwalimu plus platform, shupavu.com, TV educational programs and
many more.

It also led to the innovations of health precaution gadgets like the sanitizing machine which
helped to sanitize students and teachers when they resumed to their normal classes.

Strategies that were taken by the Education Sector to cope up with the covid-19 pandemic

Institutions adopted the transition from face to face learning to online learning where teachers
could teach the students via the internet through platforms like Zoom App, Google Meet et
cetera.

Some Institutions gave learning materials e.g. books to students as they were breaking due to
the pandemic. This helped students to read even for themselves as they were at home and not
just to idle around.

The education sector allowed the final year students to continue learning but under very strict
health precautions. This helped the final year students to complete their level as their number
was small and thus easy to manage them.

Many institutions strictly observed the health protocols like providing sanitizing and hand
washing facilities to avoid the spread of the disease when students were allowed to resume for
their classes but under observing hygienic conditions.

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Some private local schools offered meals and sanitizing materials to their students to help them
from suffering during the pandemic. This really encouraged some of the students.

The government also encouraged learning during the pandemic by ordering learning
institutions to subsidize their fees to enable students to learn even during the pandemic.

Conclusion

To conclude this study is that, covid-19 was a serious global issue that needed the word’s
cooperation and coordination for reducing its effects. This is because it completely changed
people’s way of life especially in education sector where it caused sudden changes and
transformations in the normal educational programs. This really affected both the teachers,
students and even parents, for instance; unemployment to some teachers, low academic
performance to some students, change in school calendar and many other setbacks.

Therefore, in an attempt to help the educational sector from experiencing challenges during
emergencies, then the educational managers and higher educational leaders should adopt and
change policies during changing educational environments. For example; the Ministry of
Education can design and implement an online platform which will be free and accessible to all
students. This will help the education sector to be more flexible and be able to cope up even
with extreme changing situations.

References

 en.m.wikipedia.org
 www.cdc.gov
 www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
 www.youtube.com
 Ieakenya.or.ke
 Newspapers and magazines

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