Covid-19 Pandemic Lockdown, Disruption of Academic Activities in Public Tertiary Institutions and E-Learning in Nigeria

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic, which caught everyone off guard and led to mandatory social-distancing and a complete lockdown, obviously had a detrimental impact on academic activities across the board in all educational levels with public institutions appearing to be the most severely impacted. There have been several ways through which awareness of integration of technology in education have been created but unfortunately, not all involved in the delivery of instructions in tertiary institutions deem it fit to embrace this innovation that would have served as remedy during the disruptions of academic activities caused by the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown leading to abrupt closure of schools. During the total lockdown, advocacy for online education emerged and while introduction of air-learning (radio and television) were introduced to keep learning experiences active in both primary and secondary schools, the vulnerable in public tertiary institutions were caught in the web of uncertainty. Covid-19 experiences demand that public tertiary instructions find the most appropriate alternatives capable of sustaining academic activities and the implementation of same in order to avoid future occurrences thereby turning the challenges into opportunities.