By MICHAEL BONAYA

Since the coronavirus pandemic that started in China in late 2019 spread to the rest of the world in March 2020, almost all facets of everyday life have been adversely affected. Businesses have been forced to close or work at only a fraction of their capacity so as to combat the spread of the virus.

The business of education has not been exempt from the lockdown and social distance measures, as they are known. Since March last year, countless students across Kenya have been forced to leave their school accommodation and move back home.

Most schools managed to resume offering their courses online within six months of the forced closure, although some schools are still struggling to get teachers and students online.

Higher learning institutions in Kenya were not adequately prepared for the transition to online learning. At the University of Nairobi, Kenya’s largest public university, the pandemic brought learning to a near standstill.

Time seems to have stopped at the main campus with only a few students, lecturers, and staff walking down the walkways. Emptiness looms over the whole campus casting a stark contrast to the normally bustling campus fields and noisy hallways.

In an interview, Wario, a fourth year Mechanical Engineering student at the university decried the time he had lost when the pandemic began in 2020. His faculty took two months to transition to online learning after physical classes were discontinued, and even after classes resuming, many students are still facing a number of challenges in attending classes. As an engineering student, he is especially troubled by the fact that he and his classmates cannot access the engineering labs on campus yet several of the modules in their course involve practical work.

Some students at the university have no access to hardware that they can use to attend classes e.g. laptops or personal computers. Many of the students who are in rural parts of the country complain that it is a challenge to even find a reliable internet connection over which they can comfortably attend the two to three hour long lectures.

Adano, who has just completed his degree in Business and Commerce at the same university, says he feels fortunate to have been at the end of his course when the pandemic caught the whole world by surprise.

For him, there have been positive and negative effects from the pandemic. He spoke positively of how the pandemic and lockdown were bringing families back together. He is also optimistic that the transition to learning and working from home presents a new way of life that could be healthier for our minds and the environment. He also believes that life is a bit more affordable for most students because they no longer have to pay rent for accommodation close to school or pay commuter fares to travel to and from class.

At private universities, it is a similar situation. One of the only advantages private university students; who tend to be from more privileged backgrounds; have is that they have no difficulty accessing a reliable internet connection and good quality hardware i.e. computers that they can use to log in to their classes. Faith, a second year law student at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa, expressed grievances about the time she lost while classes transitioned to online platforms.

A major concern for university students across the country and even the rest of the world is the reduction in the quality of learning in online classes compared to traditional face to face teaching methods. Students and parents are generally unhappy that tuition fees have remained the same despite this reduction in the quality of education being offered.

I am also a master’s student taking classes online and I agreed with the students I interviewed when they said that it is hard to focus on a screen for two to three hours and remain alert and receptive to the information being delivered by the lecturer.

The fact that most lecturers are still untrained in online teaching methods and practices is also a major factor that has caused the quality of education to drop significantly since the adaptation of online learning. Due to the lack of face to face communication, it is a lot harder to engage with students and read the class for lethargy or notice when students are confused or falling behind. Online learning has also made it difficult to assess students properly because with exams being taken from home and submitted online, it is virtually impossible to prevent students from cheating.

The pandemic has also brought with it serious mental health concerns. The students I interviewed all said they felt traumatized by the sudden change caused by the onset of the virus. The lockdown measures and curfews have also led many students to feel isolated in their homes causing some to fall into depression.

Aside from academics, the pandemic has also affected the social lives of students. Social activities such as extra-curricular clubs and parties have always been a big part of the university experience. With campuses closed and students learning from home, the social scene involving university students is all but dead, with students now meeting up only with close friends to share leisure and recreational activities.

Although all university students in the country are in the same proverbial storm that is the pandemic, every student is not in the same boat. Each student has a different level of financial privilege to help them face the practical challenges of digital learning. Students also have different types of families and support structures to help them adequately deal with the psychological and moral hurdles brought about by the pandemic.