Ghana, Covid-19 and E-learning systems in the various universities

As the President of the Republic of Ghana said, "this is not the normal times."

Every single person in Ghana is not focused, whether the person is a student or not. They are not focused because of anything but because of the coronavirus pandemic and its related psychological effect.

All Universities were been closed down on 16th March 2020 till further notice by the President.

The President further in his address to the Nation indicated that the Ministry of Education in collaboration with the Ministry of Communication has been tasked to roll out distance learning programmes and which some of the Universities did.

Vice-Chancellors should have met to discuss the consequences of this E-learning system that has been rolled out to the students in their own capacities to take lectures at the comfort of their homes which was not the case in previous times. Most students are facing a lot of challenges as to how to use these platforms.

Students that were not able to pay their school fees before these restrictions were put in place have no access to these E-Learning platforms. Other students from remote areas in the various parts of Ghana attending schools in Greater Accra and Ashanti regions upon the lockdown put in place to stop the spread of Covid-19 went back to their various homes.

In some of these areas, the network connections are very poor and students can not have lectures online. As a matter of fact all networks are not reliable in the country and we can not afford to write exams on the platforms.

We know that this is a very good policy put in place by the Government to engage students over this Covid-19 period, we appreciate that fact but we are faced with so many challenges that need to be addressed immediately.