Authors: APET Secretariat

This post is the 6th in a blog series to be published in 2020 by the Secretariat on behalf of the AU High Level Panel on Emerging Technologies (APET) and the Calestous Juma Executive Dialogues (CJED).

The Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) pandemic has affected almost every aspect of human endeavour, including the education sector. An upsurge in drop-out students has been observed across the globe.[1],[2] This can be attributed to the massive disruption towards education access because of the pandemic and the lack of resources. Countless communities across the continent have unreliable internet, access to electricity, and expensive broadband. Notably, Africa has been negatively affected by the pandemic; thus, derailing the entire education system. Most significantly, these disruptions constitute a “global education emergency,” threatening to disorganise at least 24 million students, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund.[3] This is because 192 countries around the world have shuttered schools, leaving 1.6 billion students without in-person learning. Currently, more than 870 million students (half the world’s student population in 51 countries) are still unable to return to school. Unfortunately, the longer children remain out of school, the less likely they are to return to school when the time comes.

To address these challenges, the most important question that African governments ought to answer is: do students wait until the pandemic is over to return to school or can governments offer students alternative means to continue learning whilst confined at home by the pandemic? The answer is that governments need to consider upscaling digital technologies that could allow students to continue learning whilst confined by the pandemic. Therefore, in order to mitigate the effects of the pandemic, African countries have to adapt in the “new normal” by harnessing technological innovations relevant for the education sector. This can significantly improve the medium through which students can learn under pandemic constraints. It can also significantly advance technological products available in the market and that can drastically alter the way education is conducted across the continent.

African countries are encouraged to improve internet access for easier utilization of digital technologies suitable for online learning. Additionally, African countries can increase the variety of resources that can adequately support students’ distance learning. These resources can be instructional packages such as radio education, educational television, and online instructional resources.

Online platforms such as WhatsApp, Zoom, CISCO WebEx, Blackboard, YouTube, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams have been the most commonly used digital technologies during school closures. However, numerous students have had challenges accessing these online platforms because of unreliable electricity, limited broadband, and internet connection challenges. But these online learning tools have options of allowing access to recorded educational content at students’ own time. Thus, students could explore the recorded information at their own discretionary time. In this way, the formalized learning programmes can conduct educational teaching based on real-time lessons led by their teachers using virtual meeting platforms.

Many African governments have responded to online learning by providing free access to the internet and to various learning digital platforms. There are cases where a telephone line known as “Your Teacher Online” has been activated to offer mentoring to students. These new digital technologies have presented entirely new solutions to the challenges confronting students during virtual learning. In addition, these technologies have enabled teachers and students to access specialized materials well beyond textbooks. These materials allow access in multiple formats in ways that bridge time and space. Subsequently, these technologies will be utilized beyond the COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 era timelines.

Another popular learning arrangement in several African countries has been television and radio broadcasts which provide educational content to enable continuous students’ learning. Television and radio programmes have mostly catered for younger children in primary schools who may have had difficulty using online learning platforms and conducting self-directed learning. Additionally, these platforms have also been utilised to reach students without adequate resources for online instructions. However, these platforms have had to deal with programming constraints to accommodate the educational programmes. Consequently, there has been insufficient time to cover the syllabi for all students across primary and high schools per day or per week, address the plethora of variable challenges of education inaccessibility for different communities, and reach a sizable proportion of students possible.

The reopening of schools and universities using modern digital technologies have brought unquestionable benefits to students and the wider economy. However, the main challenges facing the continent in harnessing these technologies include the lack of Information Communication Technology infrastructure and the use of old facilities that barely complement the digital technology requirements across the continent. Remarkably, income inequality and unequal distribution of wealth are the reasons for challenges experienced by marginalized groups towards access to these technologies. Incredibly, the prices of internet data are still extraordinarily high across the continent. Additionally, computer illiteracy among teachers is very low, thereby remaining a challenge and threatening to prevent effective digitization of the education sector. Therefore, by addressing these challenges, African governments will be able to harness digital technologies to ensure uniform education benefits across the continent.

In conclusion, when the dust settles, Africa is bound to adopt a revised educational landscape, which will be impacted and reshaped by the “new normal.” African leaders are therefore, encouraged to mitigate the risk of the continent’s education regression caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.[4] Finally, African countries ought to engage with stakeholders through Public-Private-Partnerships and formulate mitigation measures that appropriate for their specific context and adequately address education access challenges caused by the pandemic at address national, regional, and continental levels.

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[1] https://www.poynter.org/newsletters/2020/college-students-are-dropping-out-at-an-alarming-rate/

[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/15/at-least-24-million-students-could-drop-out-of-school-due-to-the-coronavirus-un-says.html

[3] https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/unicef-executive-director-henrietta-fores-remarks-press-conference-new-updated

[4] https://www.col.org/news/col-blog/education-post-covid-19-era