Potential Impact of COVID-19 Outbreak on Education, Staff Development and Training in Africa

This paper assesses the impacts of covid-19 on socio-economic situation in Africa. Coronavirus pandemic which had created from the Wuhan Province of China in last part of December 2019. It instigated increasing quickly in China and to other parts of the world through the movement of people in late 2019 and early 2020. The feast of COVID-19 pandemic pretentious economic undertakings in China, the Chinese economy came to a standstill. China is a major exporter of producer and consumer commodities to Africa, and the economic reduction in China is anticipated to have spillover effects for Africa through the deleterious effect on African trades that depend on deeply on China for the supply of primary and intermediate raw materials. The coronavirus crisis is affecting many African countries, and the number of confirmed cases have been rising rapidly with a particularly severe situation in South Africa, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco and Cameroon. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, maximum of the healthcare infrastructure in African countries had worsened . Some private hospitals rejected to admit sick patients whereas public hospitals surpassed their volume. This pressured the government of some countries to build isolation centers in large open fields around the country; notably, football stadiums were converted to isolation centers in countries such as Cameroon and Nigeria. In African countries where good healthcare systems exist, the government had to scale-up intensive care units and provide more resources for hospitals and healthcare systems to control the spread of coronavirus. The plain social consequence of the coronavirus crisis was fingered through the burden of movement limitations in numerous African countries. These measures inevitably affected economic activities in African countries, and because of the peoples in African countries are not versatile to operate jobs from home and even the government lack certain understand and lack human capita based that have that knowledge to operate from home and contributes effectively and efficiency to the economic growth and development. Most central banks applied fiscal policy, monetary policy and exchange rate policy to stabilize the economic in both the long run and short dynamics.

The emergent coronavirus literature has discovered the effect of the coronavirus predicament by single-day data, two-day data etc. and they typically emphasis on a exact sector like tourism industry sector ^{2, 3} the mining sector as part of industrial sector ⁴, or the economy ^{5, 6, 7}. First, this study contributes to the recent literature on the impact of coronavirus in society⁸. The paper contributes to this literature by exploring the socio-economic effect of coronavirus in Africa by looking at the context that was not mention in the literatures such as the online research methodology. The main objective of the paper is to assess the impacts of covid-19 on the social-economic live and livelihoods of the people in Africa, specifically; 1) the sectors’ that made up the economy, 2) perception of the people 3) social distancing 4) job search 5) Private financial situation, 6) prevention method of covid-19 pandemic etc. The paper follow this formatting. Section 2 presents the brief literature review. Section 3 current statistic of covid-19 in the World and Africa Section 4 the online research methodology. Section 5 the results. Section 6 concludes and policy implication.

A recent body of literature explores the impact of coronavirus on society. For instance^{9, 10} indication that COVID-19 has pretentious day-to-day life and is decelerating down the worldwide economy. They argue that the economic effects of coronavirus such as the slowing of the manufacturing of essential goods, disruption of the supply chain of products, losses in national and international business, poor cash flow in the market, significant slowing down in the revenue growth while the social consequences include the cancellation or postponement of large-scale sports and tournaments, disturbance of celebration of cultural events, religious and festive events social distancing, closure of hotels, bars and restaurants and religious places, closure of places for entertainment. Chen et al If migration increases by 0%, economic growth in the Gambia will reduces by 1.8^{1, 12} analyses the COVID-19 spillovers to Nigeria and finds that the existing structural weaknesses in Nigeria contributed to making the crisis more severe in the country. ⁸, using a simple model, show that the coronavirus trigged a negative supply shock. ¹¹ revealed that the health predicament distorted/transformed into an economic predicament which was augmented through financial channels.

86.3% of the respondent said they have more than 12 years of education. Figure 1.

52.2 percent of the respondents said they should open school now in Africa, while 47.8 percent fear they should not open schools. Most of the countries now in Africa open schools. The opening of schools we attributed to lack of quality delivery by lecturer because in that most of the courses that quantitative in nature will be very difficult for students to comprehend it very well due to online lecture but for face-to-face after the lectured the students can meet with its colleagues to come together to digest the courses and understand it in full detail. That is for those students that are able to attend lecture online. What of lower level students? For them if lockdown continue they will forget all that they have learned before the lockdown and that will have negative impacts in their educational career in the long term. So opening of the schools have advantage but the disadvantages are numerous such as if students did not takes proper mechanism of how to protect themselves from covid-19, if spread it can reduces the investment in human capital production and productivity in Africa especially the youth that are the backbone of Africa development agenda. In building human capital for Africa, will affect the economy positively in the long run. Figure 2.

Figure 2.Reopening of educational institution and COVID-19 pandemic June,2020 to October,2020

81 percent said before educational institution are closed there is public or official announcement that institutions must be closed due to pandemic—may be 3 months, ……,,…,, one week it depends on the severity of how covid-19 is spreading across the regions in Africa.10.7 said it may be and only 8.3 said it is not official announced. Figure 3.

Figure 3.Educational institution closures and COVID-19 pandemic June,2020 to October,2020

percent said that all the schools are closed from nursery/elementary schools to university or research centers and only 6 percent said based on the level of the school. Figure 4.

Figure 4.widespread of schools closure and COVID-19 pandemic June,2020 to October,2020

65.4 percent of the respondents said government implemented an education response for continue of learning in Africa while educational institutions are closed. In the Gambia this is very true most of the universities conducted training and learning through online classes and that helps most of the universities in Africa not to skip single semester and continue learning was implemented. This is good ways to increases new platform form learning but the disadvantages is that it reduces quality because most of the peoples or students lack knowhow to operate online zoom or others but also the energy sector in Africa makes most of the students to miss certain lecture and that disruption affects their daily life. Lacking interactions and exchange of ideas with peers also reduces the quality of education and learning, research and development, training and so on are all affected by covid-19 pandemic, that was first seen in China city of Wuhan. Figure 5.

Figure 5.Government Implemented education closure and COVID-19 pandemic June,2020 to October,2020

61.5 percent said use of online/digital learning platform is the method for continuity of learning is currently available for children affected by closures of educational institutes provided by government, while 50 percent said television, radio, or podcast broadcast and 17.9 percent said assigning reading and exercises for home study. In our opinion, this may be due to the fact that each level of education was given special treatment such as those at university can conduct online classes and those at secondary level can conduct others means to have education even though we are in lockdown or schools closure is on. Figure 6.

Figure 6.Method and COVID-19 pandemic June,2020 to October,2020

45.3 percent out of 100 percent said use of online or digital learning platform are the proportion of children affected by education institution closure. Most of the children cannot use online learning or even can use it due to destabilization of electricity causes interruption or delayed in online lecture and those reduces or affects the performances of the students.38.7 percent said the proportion of children affect are the one that concentrate of using television, radio or podcast broadcasts to get academic content. This is true for now a days children in Africa not only during covid-19 pandemic but before television, radio affects their daily life and the opportunity cost lead to severity reduction in their performance.14.7 percent of the respondents are the proportion of the children affected by educational institute closure if they are assigning reading and exercises for home study. Online classes are not 100 percent effective for lower basic students and for senior schools student lack of knowledge and electricity fluctuation and some areas no electricity all affect them negatively. Figure 7.

Figure 7.Method search and COVID-19 pandemic June,2020 to October,2020

(If Yes) Please add additional comments explaining the Government continuing learning response, including as relevant any planned response after crisis (including review and development of accelerated learning) and any digital platforms used.34 responses

The following comments are added by respondents explaining government continuing learning response and their planned response after coronavirus crises such as;

Online learning

To provide electricity and internet to all

the radios and tvs which students do not have opportunity to ask question

Improve on the internet service most especially university students

Radio statio

Go TG allowed the grade 12 students to take or do their final exams may be after the pandemic, they will comes out with better solution to solve the difficulty of learning online especially for children

By creating Google classroom

It was not effective as the majority of the population did not understand and cannot access the media

Encourage extra classes

Government should introduce online learning method through out the country

Let the government open schools and online digital classes for examination classes

Free online learning and improve data and internet connectivity

The online, TV and radio classes have ceased to exist. Only grade 9s and 12s are allowed to take their exams. The pandemic will have serious consequences on the education of young people. The ministry haven't come up with a creative and innovative way of learning yet.

Ineffective

Prioritized the need of citizen and provide us our basic need

This is method of TV delivery of lessons is unfair and unattainable.

Free training

Zoom meeting app deployment and WhatsApp platform

As above question and this question are similar, but this one is dealing with non-government, private schools etc.52.6 percent of the respondents from non-government organization, private schools said use of online or digital learning platform is the method for continuity of learning is currently available for children affected by closures of educational institutes, while 61.5 percent said use of online/digital learning platform is the method for continuity of learning is currently available for children affected by closures of educational institutes provided by government. The same thing government said as well. Similar respondents from government as do the non-government or private schools and 35.9 percent respondent said television, radio and podcast broadcast are method for continuity of learning is currently available for children affected by closures of educational institutes-provided by non-governmental organization, private schools etc, whereas 50 percent of the respondents said assigning reading and exercises for home study is the method for continuity of learning is currently available for children affected by closures of educational institutes-provided by government. Figure 8.

Figure 8.Method and COVID-19 pandemic June,2020 to October,2020

How does access to and ability to use the methods of continuity of learning vary across different groups (such as age groups, gender, socioeconomic background, refugees/IDPs and migrants, rural / urban etc.)? (e.g. students in rural areas may find it more challenging to access online resources.)50 responses

They respondent the question above and answer below

Difficult

Poor electricity and lack radios and television

Difference in infrastructure

Rural find it difficult to access and able to use the method of online learning

Yes, the is lack of adequate and equal infrastructure available among the students Rural areas find it difficult to enjoy television program

Access to affordable and reliable internet connection is a challenge

The level of technology are different

Some have no electricity and television

Yes they are more vulnerable

Yes the vulnerable children find it difficult due to economic problems

Rural/ urban Varies due to lack of technology and required skills

It was always challenged for the rural areas because inadequate television, radios and electricity.

Children in the rural areas find it difficult to access online resources

Lack of electricity for rural pupils.

Some have no access to it

Very difficult for rural students to follow the lectures online and on TV as many didn't have access to it

Income difference

Rural students don't tv and radio

Students in the rural areas are not partaking at all because of lack of facilities

It varies very much due to lack of access to facilities

Only a fraction of student population have access to online learning completely negating the rural students

Is is not sustainable as the government finds it difficult to pay the service fees to some of the radio stations

Those in the rural areas will find it more than challenging considering the rainy season for food cultivation.

Very much varied

Lack of data and poor internet connection

Accessibility

Electricity and internet access

Not much people could afford it,due to challenges in rural areas

Varies due to supply of internet services to some locations

Remotely difficult to state

Lack of access to data

Can you share examples of good practices, in the education response to the COVID-19 crisis from your country (for example, provision of school meals)? Please provide links to further information if available43 responses

Nothing

It s so hard for mist people

Temperature checks

NA

To provide transportation facilities and food assistance to schools

Non

World Food Program (WFP)

No

Nill

N/A

provision of guidance for both the teachers and the students

WFP food supply

Introduction of online especially utg undergraduate and postgraduate degree programs

Practice basic hygiene and school feedings

Provision of vitamin A crops to the school to improve consumption

Let the government provide more facemask and hand washing material for school so that they can reopened school.

Provision of Food stuffs to families.

Radio broadcast

Google classroom was effective in the urban areas with the strong internet connection

None

Google classroom platform

Nothing was provided

Government provide school feedings

no idea

Not aware of it

No school extra support

Yes government can provide school meals and provide risk allowance to teachers.

I think the ministry of education should direct the available funds to creating a safer environment for learning to take place. Regular tastings, hand washing and proper hygiene should be taught and maintained. Proper face mask wearing, school meals and counseling for both parents and children.

Online lectures

Help household resilient

It's good to provide well-supervised meals for students.

sex

n/a

Free meals

Nothing of such is available

the government claimed food were shared. I don't believe it

The task force monthly review of responses to the challenge is worthy of note and commendations

48.1 percent of the respondents said for the impact of covid-19 pandemic on staff development and training that their enterprise or organization partially suspended operation due to the pandemic and 34.2 percent of the responded said they completely suspended operation because of coronavirus pandemic and 16.5 percent said no closures on in operation for staff development and training because of pandemic. According to the respondents due to pandemic of covid-19, staff development and training that is used basically to improve organization performance was either completed suspended or partially suspended, majority responded. One of the key determinants or factors for development is research and development and training is part of it and that obviously have positive impact on economic and it improve or advancement of knowledge spillover effect increases total factor productivity and that increases economic growth, standard of living and overall economic development in the long run. So due to covid-19 pandemic this has stop and this will have economic cost and negative implication during and after covid-19 post recovering period. Figure 9.

Figure 9.Staff development and training and COVID-19 pandemic June,2020 to October,2020

45.6 percent of the responded to the survey said their work places or enterprise or organization partially introduced work from home measures in the response to the covid-19 pandemic. Most of the works place in Africa operate certain days and sometimes not all department works and certain department closed totally due to lockdown and those that are highly demanded sometimes even changing shift-meaning some days some staffs comes to work and other days other staffs turn. All of these to avoid the risk causes by coronavirus outbreak. As most of the works places in Africa have highest level of uneducated or unskilled workers and otherwise, in that 26.6 percent of the respondent said their organization or enterprise do es not introduced work from home measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. While 27.8 percent of the respondent said their organization or department introduced work from home measures in response to covid-19 pandemic. This will helps those organizations not to reduce workers but continue to have their productivity gain and increases their outcome and profit and organization goals and production, investment and overall growth of the department. Figure 10.

Figure 10.Work From Home and COVID-19 pandemic June,2020 to October,2020

According to whether staff training activities are interrupted due to covid-19, 43.6 percent of the responded said they agree that staff training programs and activities are been interrupted by covid-19 outbreak. This may be attributed closure or lockdown that occurred to reduce the spread of covid-19.21.8 percent of the respondent said they strongly disagree to the above question, while 15.4 percent of the respondent said they strongly agree to interruption of staff training and activities because of covid-19 pandemic. Figure 11.

Figure 11.Staff development and training and COVID-19 pandemic June,2020 to October,2020

54 percent of the respondent said their organization have specific measure to ensure the staff training activities continue. This may be attributed to prepare staff training through online lecture by using Google link, zoom, Skype, videoconference etc. to do this from home or directly from their offices or wherever it found them to make sure staff development continue and stop the spread of covid-19 pandemic.14.7 percent and 7.9 percent disagree and strongly disagree respectively that their enterprise or organization taken any specific measure to ensure the continuity of training activities of their staff. This may be attributed to that some organization does not care their staff goals and does not have good corporate governance principle in their work environment and otherwise. Figure 12.

Figure 12.Measure and COVID-19 pandemic June,2020 to October,2020

50 percent of the respondent to this question of the survey said their organization had planned new training programmes or activities in response to the covid-19 e.g University of the Gambia training their staffs for quality teaching and learning for their students.34.6 percent said their organization is not planning or organizing any new training or activities to the covid-19 pandemic while 15.4 percent said maybe. Figure 13.

Figure 13.Enterprise Planned and COVID-19 pandemic June,2020 to October,2020

55.1 percent of the respondent said their enterprise used online learning programmes and resources and 32. 1 percent said their enterprise used video conferencing tools and 21.8 percent said their enterprise used no distance learning tools and 17.9 percent of the respondent said their enterprise used virtual reality simulators and 15.4 percent said their organization used printed materials such as new papers or posters and 9 percent said multimedia including podcasts and YouTube and the 6.4 percent, which is the least said TV are used for staff development and training during covid-19 pandemic. This covid-19 has lot of problems and interruptions such as universities closed down, some universities online classes, which is mostly ineffective and other they even postpone the semesters and others they are undecided, some market are closed down and this also affect trades, some mosques and church closed down and this affect worshipping “Allah” or “God” and some import and export stop and some even currency exchange stop, some services sector, industrial sector and agricultural sector stop or activities reduces and small, medium and large enterprises halted and all these disrupts the current and expected economic growth and development Figure 14.

Figure 14.Job search and COVID-19 pandemic June,2020 to October,2020

According to the results of this question of the online survey, 49.3 percent said the challenges their enterprise face in delivery staff training programmes and activities using online learning or offline learning during covid-19 was due to infrastructure issues such the problem associated with internet and the like. Poor internet services and poor electricity supply make it difficult for most of the staff to connect and listen to the lecture as training is delivery online and if offline the transportation is limited due to lockdown and closure of cities country due covid-19 pandemic. The survey of the study also confirmed that 32.9 percent twice said limited digital skills of trainers and cost of staff training was a major setback to train staff in their enterprise or organization or department or establishment while 30.1 percent said it is due to limited digital literacy of users are the main challenges face by their department in order to train staff. Only 5.5 percent said their establishment does not face any challenges to train its staff. This may be attributed to organization that good productive practice and are able to maximum satisfied it staff because of good ICT background and good inputs and output in which organization core and its functions are depend upon. Figure 15.

Figure 15.Enterprise challenges and COVID-19 pandemic June,2020 to October,2020

44.2 percent of the respondent said they have additional support in their organization for those staff that are organizing and delivering the training to ensure it continuation. This is also a good one because incentive will motivate those staff to continue what they are doing and this of course increases production and productivity of the service delivery and that increases the revenue of the company or organization.32.2 percent said their organization those not have addition support or funding for those responsible for organizing and delivering the training to ensure it continuity. If those staff are not motivated with additional support by organization or they try to get support for them somewhere, the goals of the organization may be halt due to discouragement of the organizer and deliverer of staff training for it to be continue. To train junior staff or who lack knowledge in certain areas will definitely have positive and long term benefit for organization in terms of operation and revenue generation, the study noted. Figure 16.

Figure 16.Enterprise and COVID-19 pandemic June,2020 to October,2020

55.8 percent of the respondent said their enterprise is not partering with another organization or external body to facilitate training for their staff. Meaning staff training during covid-19 is direct done by the organization themselves 2hile 28.6 percent said their organization connect with external organization for their staff training. This may be due to the fact that some organization are share organization and parents organization may be connect with its subordinate organization to deliver training or large organization try to train small organization or WHO try to provide additional training for ministry of health staff or FAO try to deliver addition training for agriculture staff and so on. Figure 17.

Figure 17.External organization and COVID-19 pandemic June,2020 to October,2020

44.3 percent of the respondent said their organization would reduce investment in staff training development due to constraint they are facing due to covid-19 pandemic e.g reduction profit or reduction employment or reduction in service delivery due to closure or lockdown whereas 36.7 percent said their enterprise does not reduce investment in training and development. Figure 18.

Figure 18.Enterprise investment and COVID-19 pandemic June,2020 to October,2020

As covid-19 affects most enterprise especially service delivering and the co, it makes them to have constraints to for training it staff and therefore that reduces their revenue base.76.6 percent said their organization during this covid-19 pandemic adjusting the way it delivers training in the long run e.g. online training such as training from home. That will improve work from home syndrome and that will improve effectiveness and efficiency to deliver quality work from home. 23.4 percent of the respondent said their organization those not adjust the way it deliver training due to covid-19 pandemic/outbreak. Figure 19.

Figure 19.Enterprise and COVID-19 pandemic June,2020 to October,2020

This paper assesses the covid-19 and its effect on education and staff training and development of Africa by looking at some of important and negative effects of online lecture and staff training and development. As the results generated, most people said coronavirus will affect African countries even in the future due to the fact that African countries do not have proper human capital to deal with this pandemic and due to lockdown most of the revenue and products. employment, consumption etc.

Policy implications – The implication of the results from this online survey is that it has serious impacts on education closure and staff development and training. As educations are closed due to covid-19 pandemic, it will affect already problems of human capital that are hampering the development of Africa. Due to covid-19 pandemic, the achievement of sustainable development goals on quality education will be seriously halted. The government and the ministry in Africa should work hand in hand to solve the problems of children affected by schools closure after the pandemic by either additional hours or provide more study hours for schools to catch-up with what happened during the pandemic, the study noted.

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