Telecommuting: A Panacea to COVID-19 Spread in Nigerian Universities

Abstract

The paper examines how telecommuting could serve as a panacea to the spread of COVID-19 in Nigerian Universities. The research sample consists of 119 respondents, of which 36 are lecturers and 83 are students. The primary source was used in data collection with a structured questionnaire which employed five-point Likert – scale. The questionnaire was administered to respondents online via Google forms (https://bit.ly/3cdbkSZ). The study adopted the qualitative and quantitative data analysis method. ANOVA, Correlation and Regression analyses were used to test the Hypotheses with the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 25. The Cronbach Alpha test was adopted for the establishment of reliability Coefficient. The findings revealed that Telecommuting strongly affects the spread of COVID-19. Furthermore, we found that online teaching could help with social distancing. Social media has a negative correlation with community spread of COVID-19, while video conferencing has a positive impact on the importation of COVID-19 and that Internet usage could curb the spread of coronavirus in Nigerian University. The study concludes that telecommuting is an effective strategy the Nigerian Government should adopt in the educational sector to avoid any future disease spread that would disrupt the academic activities. The paper recommends that the ministry of health should enforce all the Institutions of learning in Nigeria from primary to Tertiary to be Information Communication Technology,( ICT) compliance to enable telecommuting to be active and efficient.