E-Learning in Higher Education during COVID-19: Experiences, Challenges and Lessons from Cameroon

Abstract

This paper examines how the COVID-19 pandemic exposed significant vulnerabilities to external threats by most states and how the subsequent lockdown measures that were designed to stem the tide of the virus negatively impacted society and the economy worldwide. The paper also demonstrates how the lack of preparedness by states to meet up with the sudden and unexpected challenges posed by the virus impacted higher education. Research for the paper was conducted principally via desktop review involving policy documents on e-learning in higher education, archival materials, journal articles, scientific reviews, web sources as well as the researcher’s experiences and observations during the pandemic. Findings reveal that before the pandemic, Cameroon’s Ministry of Higher Education was pushing for hybrid education via online and on-site lessons. However, this process was largely in its gestation phases when the pandemic struck, prompting the full-blown but premature shift to emergency remote learning, leading to a number of challenges notably: the precipitate redesign of course contents, lesson plans and methods of delivery; the acute shortage of networking and computing resources for both educators and learners. These logistical and internet connectivity challenges meant that lecturers resorted to uploading text, typed documents, or even photos into WhatsApp forums instead of the University learning management systems. The pandemic further exposed a widening digital divide which is said to have negatively impacted students and educators from poor backgrounds.