Alliance for African Partnership Perspectives

Business repositioning at Botswana Open University in the face of COVID-19

2021-01-11T12:51:22-05:00

The COVID-19 Contagion, since it became a pandemic, has left deleterious footprints on different parts of the globe. In Botswana, as the government and institutions grapple with ways to adapt and be resilient to the effects of the scourge, some positive and significant achievements have been realised. The Botswana Open University, even before this was declared a pandemic by WHO in March 2020, proactively put in place a task team to, among other calls, advise management on ways to effectively deal with the effects of the pandemic and ensure smooth business continuity. This chapter discusses the coordinated response mix that the BOU Management takes in order to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. The response has passed through a spectrum from the creation of a dedicated Task Team to be part of the response strategy, controlled working from home, to making enhanced online application of ICT and other Technology Enabled Teaching and Learning. The work also presents the continuous adaptations that the University makes, to provide it with the resilience that is necessary for its business continuity. At the end, the project briefly highlights how the educational landscape in Botswana changes with the prevalence of COVID-19 and opportunities that emanate from that for Botswana Open University.

Keywords: Covid-19; Pandemic; Task Team; Strategy; IT, Technology Enhanced Teaching and Learning

Reflections on University Education in Uganda and the COVID-19 Pandemic Shock

2021-06-15T15:56:46-04:00

Almost all universities in Uganda were ill prepared for the COVID-19 pandemic shock. After two months into the pandemic, it became evident to all education stakeholders that a “new normal,” had begun. This new normal would require non-conventional approaches to university pedagogy as well as education human resources accountability. Uganda’s university education largely illustrates the worldwide surge in the liberalization of higher education (Muwagga, 2006). The country is home to over thirty registered private universities and eleven public universities (NCHE, 2019).

Coping with the Impacts of COVID-19 in Higher Education

2021-06-17T17:43:00-04:00

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a serious health crisis across the world. The education sector is one of the hardest hit sectors, and countries across the globe are implementing different strategies to ensure students at all different levels of study can continue with their learning. The University of Botswana announced its first lockdown due to COVID-19 in May 2020, responding to the national expectation. At this time, students were on a five day short vacation. They had left the campus without anticipating any closure with some traveling both nationally and internationally, while others were on campus accommodated in the residence halls.

Prologue

2021-06-18T14:34:39-04:00

I first expressed some of the sentiments in this prologue in a piece entitled - The Coronavirus: The Political Economy of a Pathogen, that was published in various social media outlets in March 2020, just when the world was going on various stages of lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. My thoughts then still seem relevant to set the stage for the great discussions that were held last year during the Alliance for African Partnership (AAP) 6-part COVID-19 dialogue series. The series provided an opportunity for African voices including Vice Chancellors, researchers and other relevant staff at AAP consortium universities, as well as other stakeholders to share their stories of response, hope and resilience during the pandemic.

COVID-19 Pandemic in Nigeria

2021-01-08T19:53:17-05:00

The Covid-19 pandemic, spreading first to Europe, then to Africa has drastically shifted priorities and created a large amount of uncertainty. The question of what shape recovery from the pandemic will take and what the new normal entails is still up in the air, but there are lessons we can already glean. In Nigeria, the pandemic brought to the fore gaps occasioned by decades of negligence of social infrastructure development including healthcare (hospitals), education (schools and universities), etc. and social services. Industry were ill-prepared and were more focused on donating to the government rather than anticipating and fulfilling their responsibilities to their employees and clients. The wide indiscipline of the populace (non-compliance with rules and regulation) has continued to propagate the spread of Covid-19, while Covid-19 amplified the sharp division along professional lines.

This article will be taking an introspective path, reflecting on fundamental notions of responsibility, looking at individual accountability as the essence of good corporate citizenship. We will also be exploring local and international partnerships and the role of different stakeholders in every sector, especially through the lens view of a “One Health” approach that acknowledges the interconnectedness of human, animal, and environmental health as an imperative for response, research, and control of infectious diseases: and prevention of the next pandemic. These insights will assist in reimagining individual and corporate responsibilities, and partnerships as Nigeria navigates the pandemic-induced ‘new normal’.

Locked Down during the Lockdown

2021-01-29T12:03:08-05:00

While the pandemic came with the lockdown that was observed as a measure to curtailthe spread of the Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19), public Universities in Nigeria were under another kind of lockdown. The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) in Nigeria was on a nationwide strike with strict enforcement of compliance to no-teaching and other academic activities in every member university. Since academic activities were on a halt, did that mean academics had no academic engagement? Not exactly:individual academics engaged in activities that had academic bias, utilising digital and non-digital tools.This paper looks at how the pandemic shaped these different academic activities within the Nigerian academic circles, as well as the availability and affordability of the digital infrastructure needed for Internet-driven engagement for Nigerian academics. The paper is based on oral conversations with academics from different Nigerian Universities—federal, state and private; as well as on digitally driven questionnaire. From our findings: almost 100% of the academic activities were in the quest for knowledge, knowledge expansion and promotion. Out of the 42academics who participated in the study, 85.7% engaged in various academic activitiesduring the strike and lockdown periods—namely research writing, reading and conferences—did so via the internet and also face-to-face. Due to the strike action, only 21.4%of study participants engaged in teaching activities. The majority were staff of private institutions. Our paper suggests that institutions of higher education in Nigeria should invest more in technological infrastructure to aid virtual conferences, workshops and online classesas these have become the new normal.

The Future of Continental and International Collaboration at the University of Nigeria after COVID-19

2021-06-17T17:18:32-04:00

International collaborations between academics have led to a significant increase in research output and a rapid increase in the citation impact of publications since collaboration became an essential feature of academic research. The increase in such collaborations can be traced to the 1980s when certain developments, such as improvements in communication made possible by the internet, the greater ease of travelling and the lifting of restrictions on the ability of scientists from places like Russia and China to collaborate coincided to widen the pool of scientific expertise from which collaborators can be drawn.

Pre- and Post-COVID-19

2021-06-17T18:10:46-04:00

Since its arrival, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought about serious challenges worldwide. As of early January 2021, there were 83,715,617 confirmed cases and 1,835,901 deaths globally; and in Africa, 1,961,234 confirmed cases and 43,592 deaths were recorded (World Health Organisation, 2020). Within this period in Botswana, 14,805 confirmed cases and 42 deaths were recorded, and in Ghana, there were 55,064 confirmed cases and 335 deaths. The pandemic has led to students dropping out from schools.

COVID-19 and African Civil Society Organizations: Impact and Responses

2021-01-13T22:14:18-05:00

This paper investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on CSO’s in Africa and their responses. The investigation is presented along the following themes; a) How the pandemic impacted civil society organizations and how they in turn responded; b) How philanthropists and philanthropic organizations responded to the crisis; CSOs’ involvement in national responses to the pandemic; and d) opportunities and lessons learnt.

Facing COVID-19 Pandemic Learning/Teaching Challenges

2021-06-17T16:50:24-04:00

The global outbreak and rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has posed unprecedented challenges worldwide (IAU, 2020). From Wuhan, China, where it first began in December 2019, the virus caused a “perverse relief” (Zeleza, 2020, p. 16) in Africa—longtime portrayed as home to infectious diseases— and spread rapidly to become the bane of humankind across the globe. As a result, by April 2020, seeking to curb the flow of the infection, approximately 43% of the world population went into a complete lockdown (IAU, 2020). According to the UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report (2020), this pandemic “has further exposed and deepened inequalities and the fragility of our societies” (as cited by ADEA, 2020, p. 5). Indeed, not only did the pandemic shed light on the frailty and vulnerability of human life, but it also sharpened, in an unprecedented fashion, existing inequalities and the gulf between the world’s population.

African women scientists’ COVID-related experiences

2021-06-17T17:49:42-04:00

The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) outbreak, a virus responsible for COVID-19, has currently become the world’s major health problem. It quickly spread across most of the globe in a short timeframe, leading the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare it a pandemic on March 11, 2020.

Covid 19 Pandemic and Coping Strategies at the Dominican University and Institute Samonda, Ibadan Nigeria

2021-01-10T22:46:11-05:00

In this chapter, I accounted for the strategies adopted by the management of Dominican University to help students continue their educational activities during COVID -19 pandemic using qualitative research methods. The challenges experienced by students using the online learning platform and strategies they devised to manage these challenges were also examined. The Dominican University switched to online learning mode during the lock down. Students were faced with various challenges during their on line classes. These include erratic power supply, high cost of data bundle for Internet connection, and poor network connection among others. To manage these challenges, students resorted to the use of generators and power banks to charge their electronic devices, some went and lived with friends or relatives living in areas with stable network connection to receive their lectures. The online learning made the lecturers and students more Internet savvy and enabled students continued their lectures without disruption. However, students missed the face to face interaction with their lecturers and fellow students. Returning back on campus after the lock down, the management of Dominican University provided taps and wash hand basins at strategic places in the school compound, made compulsory the use of face masks as well as discourage the crowding of students at the cafeteria to ensure the students’ safety. The study recommended that for online learning to be effective in higher institutions in Nigeria there is need for stable power supply and good Internet connection

AAP Universities' Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic

2021-06-15T15:41:16-04:00

Nations across the globe have had to rapidly come to terms with coping and finding solutions to the challenges that beset them with the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic. African universities, and indeed even those in the global north, have had many challenges to overcome primarily with continuing education, responding to government and community needs, innovating science to respond to the pandemic, maintaining research programs, and providing accurate and continuous information to students and staff. Most universities responded with various levels of successes and they continue to confront the ongoing challenges from continued teaching and learning to financial sustainability.

The Mental and Psychosocial Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on University Faculty and Students

2021-06-17T17:30:33-04:00

The COVID-19 pandemic is bringing a considerable degree of fear, concern, worry, anxiety, grief, and uncertainty amongst the global population because of the severity in which it can impact infected individuals, the lack of knowledge and understanding we have about the virus, having to remain in isolation, continued increases in mortality and morbidity rates each day, and financial crises that continue to build. These feelings, left unchecked, can result in a likelihood of mental health disorders that can have long-term psychological implications, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), growing exponentially.

Future Directions

2021-06-17T18:18:25-04:00

In 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us around the globe reminisced about what 2019 was like and how we missed that world. We also talked about looking forward to a life after COVID-19—to which countries we would travel, whom we would visit first, or what work we would pursue. We could hardly wait for the next year and that future. Many of us did not imagine that the COVID-19 pandemic would continue to wreak havoc on the world in 2021. In fact, for many in Africa, as you have read in many of the reflections, it feels like the wrath of COVID-19 has just begun. Moreover, in addition to the pandemic, many countries like the U.S., have seen other major challenges, a racial reckoning like no other, climate change up close, and the fake news era clashing with democracy. The truth is that COVID-19 coupled with these other global challenges have provided the world with an opportunity to reset and innovate. COVID-19 has shown us just how much our world is interconnected and how much partnerships that span geography, discipline, and perspective are needed. The next generation of higher education partnerships will be the most consequential for how we move forward together and address the impacts of these challenges for the future of Africa and the world.

Responding to COVID-19: Community engagement projects during lockdown in South Africa

2021-01-08T10:53:38-05:00

The University of Pretoria in South Africa presents a compulsory undergraduate Community Engagement module in its Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology. The project-orientated course must be completed within the allocated 80 notional hours. Students do at least 40 hours of fieldwork and reflect on their experiences through various assignments. More than 1 900 students were enrolled in the module during 2020 and worked in more than 500 groups with more than 250 different university-community partners. The students were required to engage in a community service project in which they could apply their knowledge to uplift the community.

The students had to address a specific need in a community that would have a beneficial impact on the relevant section of that society. During the COVID-19 lockdown, students had to identify alternative ways to assist the communities. Students, therefore, continued with various projects, which included creating a mobile application (an app) for a homelessness project, assisting teachers with their online teaching, teaching learners Mathematics via WhatsApp, developing websites to assist with Mathematics, developing educational videos, making masks for schools, clinics, old age homes and disadvantaged communities, and developing educational resources for disadvantaged pre-schools. The reflection piece will discuss how the module adapted to off-site community projects, the various projects the students executed, as well as the lessons learnt by the students and module coordinator on changing the format of the module in a time of crisis.

Exploring the Gendered Effects on the COVID-19 Pandemic on Academic Staff in Tanzania

2021-01-15T06:23:27-05:00

Abstract

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic marked a serious interruption in all sectors and on all communities during 2020. Like other spaces, universities were severely disrupted. Evidence quickly began to emerge of the differential gendered experiences of these disruptions, with indications that female publication rates stalled or declined, which males held steady or increased during this period (Sills 2020, Pinho-Gomes et al. 2020), and that the care burden generated by the crisis accentuated existing gender inequalities (Power, 2020). This paper examines the effects of the COVID-19 lock-down on Tanzanian academics. Utilizing a feminist relational framework, it draws upon evidence gathered through qualitative research methods to explore the lived experiences of academics around three themes -caring and coping; work-life balance; impact to research capacities. The findings provide insights into the differential gender effects of the crisis on male and female academics, and points to specific characteristics of the situated Tanzanian experience.

Efforts Towards Education Access and Sustainance of Research and Public Service Relevance at the University of Dar es Salaam in the Age of COVID-19

2021-06-17T17:08:56-04:00

The World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic outbreak on March 11^th, 2020. Tanzania reported its first case of COVID-19 on March 16^th, 2020 and, thereafter, the numbers in the country started to grow. The Tanzania government took a variety of measures to contain the disease such as closing universities and schools, imposing restrictions in public transport, restricting large public gatherings in order to observe social distancing, as well as practicing hand-washing hygiene. Consequently, the University of Dar es Salaam partially closed on March 18^th, 2020. The closure of the University affected activities which were scheduled under the 2019/2020 Almanac of the University of Dar es Salaam, including registration for the continuing students, teaching and examinations, long vacation, practical training/fieldwork, teaching practice, supplementary examinations, the three yearly visits by external examiners, and graduation ceremonies. These activities were scheduled to take place between March 23^rd and October 31^st, 2020. As conditions in terms of the number of COVID-19 cases began to improve, the government began lifting restrictions and announced the reopening of higher learning institutions on June 1^st, 2020. The University of Dar es Salaam was then officially re-opened under the recovery and operationalization plan as directed by the Government of Tanzania.

Looking into Africa's Future

2021-06-17T17:57:58-04:00

We live now in unprecedented times due to the global pandemic caused by COVID-19. The rapid spread of the virus has caught much of the world off-guard, causing a crisis that is global in nature, disrupting all socio-economic sectors as we know them, including health, education, and transportation. This is happening at a time when we are entering a new era of knowledge. The automation of the Fourth Industrial Revolution will lead to an increasing number of jobs that require education in complex fields, such as artificial intelligence. In the developed world, most education was able to continue online thanks to access to information-technology infrastructure, for example broadband connectivity at home and computer ownership. However, in most of the developing world, and in Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in particular (33 of 46 LDCs are in Africa), this has not been the case.