Assessing the effectiveness of the Covid-19 pandemic on the Nigerian educational system : benefits and drawbacks of E-learning

Abstract

One of the sectors that have been significantly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic is education. In Nigeria, before the outbreak, the education system focused solely on face-to-face teaching and learning. Learners in both primary and secondary schools were not permitted to own or display any digital device, such as a phone or computer, in the school environment. Following the announcement of the country’s lockdown and school closure owing to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, both teachers and learners were at a loss as to how to continue with teaching and learning. This paper assesses the challenges and effects of Covid-19 on education in Nigeria. The effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on education are unusual and unprecedented in history, as school closures, for instance, affected over 1.5 billion learners worldwide. Equally, because the majority of educational institutions continue to use the traditional typologies of virtual learning in traditional classroom settings, learners from developing countries, such as Nigeria, were significantly disadvantaged. This paper, through extant literature reviewed from over 71 recent publications, emphasizes the significance of e-learning in the face of global pandemics and natural disasters, especially during school closures. In this study, Covid-19 was found to have harmed education in Nigeria. In this regard, the benefits and drawbacks of e-learning for policy and practice were discussed.