Tertiary Teachers Strike (TTS) and e-Learning Deficit amidst Covid-19 Crisis in Nigeria

Victor Okoro Ukaogo¹, Florence Onyebuchi Orabueze² & Chika Kate Ojukwu³

¹PhD, Professor, Department of History and International Studies, University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Corresponding Author. Email: victor.ukaogo@unn.edu.ng

²PhD, Professor, Department of English and Literary Studies, University of Nigeria Nsukka. Email: florence.Orabueze@unn.edu.ng,

³PhD, Lecturer, Department of English and Literary Studies, University of Nigeria Nsukka. Email: chika.ojukwu@unn.edu.ng

 Volume 13, Number 3, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n3.21

Abstract

Amid the raging Covid-19 pandemic across the world and the debilitating tertiary teachers strike in Nigeria, this study’s objective seeks to examine the prevailing un-lived experiences of Nigerian tertiary students in e-learning. The study argues that Covid-19 has widened the digital divide between Nigerian universities and other universities in other parts of the world on the one hand and between public and private tertiary institutions in Nigeria on the other. This e-learning deficit is worsened by university teachers’ strikes, constituting a twin inhibition into which higher education is consigned in Nigeria. The study identifies poor funding of education as a major constraint to virtual learning and instruction faced by public tertiary students especially in the era of the pandemic. Data collection for the study will be carried out through oral interviews basically focus group discussion (FGD) from a sample population of 50 university students (male and female) in three universities across the southeast region of Nigeria, newspaper reports, and participant-observer methods of research analysis.

Keywords: e-learning; tertiary teachers, public universities, private universities, education; Covid-19; ASUU strike, vaccine nationalism