Abstract
The study investigated the situation and views of the Education International (EI) member unions in Africa regarding the Covid-19 pandemic. The EI, a global body of education unions with over 32.5 million members in 384 unions across 178 countries in the world, is a critical global education stakeholder. It commissioned this study to obtain evidence to inform its policies about the pandemic. The primary data are based on the opinions of union leaders from 58 education unions in 34 African countries who responded to a semi-structured online questionnaire, while additionally, thirteen union leaders across the African countries and the Chief Regional Coordinator of the EI Africa Region were interviewed. The findings revealed a massive disruption of education, exacerbated educational inequalities, teachers’ poor digital skills and lack of infrastructure, and increased vulnerability of the marginalized learners shut out of school. Recommendations were made for EI, African Union and Governments.
Highlights
The Covid-19 virus was detected in December 2019 in Wuhan, China
The primary data are based on the opinions of union leaders from 58 education unions in 34 African countries who responded to a semi-structured online questionnaire, while thirteen union leaders across the African countries and the Chief Regional Coordinator of the Education International (EI) Africa Region were interviewed
The relevant international organizations (African Union Commission, 2020b; Education International, 2020a; Teacher Task Force & International Labour Organization, 2020a; UNESCO, 2020c) advocated that that the governments and institutions must ensure the continuity of teaching and learning by online and other means during the pandemic
Summary
By March 2020, it became a global pandemic. In August 2020, there were 23,057,288 individuals infected with the Covid-19 virus at the global level and 800,906 of them died (WHO, 2020). There were 1,187,937 Covid-19 cases in Africa with 27,779 deaths and 906,691 recoveries (Africa Centre for Disease Control, CDC, 2020). The effects of the pandemic on all spheres of life - health, education, economy, politics, and families - have been profound. In the words of Audrey Azoulay, the UNESCO Director-General, ‘while temporary school closures as a result of health and other crises are not new the global scale and speed of the current educational disruption is unparalleled and, if prolonged, could threaten the right to education’ In the words of Audrey Azoulay, the UNESCO Director-General, ‘while temporary school closures as a result of health and other crises are not new the global scale and speed of the current educational disruption is unparalleled and, if prolonged, could threaten the right to education’ (UNESCO Associated Schools Network, 2020, p. 1)
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