Abstract:

The year 2020 will be largely remembered for the Covid-19 pandemic which caused a lot of disruption in all spheres of people’s lives. The Education sector was not spared in this ordeal as it became impossible to operate as normal due to lockdown restrictions. There was even more pressure on Higher Education institutions’ leadership to find ways to fulfil their obligations to provide tuition to the students, especially considering the amount of fees they pay. Strategic operational changes had to be implemented very quickly to ensure continuity of service. As such, it became imperative for learning, teaching and assessment to be conducted online. For academic staff who already ran courses online, there was no shock except that they probably began to get a bit more support in terms of provision of the technologies they could use. However, for those that were used to teaching face-to-face, the move to online provision may not have been as welcomed because of uncertainties.

Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, many people have shared their experiences of dealing with the unforeseen circumstances. This has been through conference presentations and proceedings thereof, and through publication of articles, blogs, journals, etc. This paper serves as a literature review of some of those publications to collate the challenges that were faced by people in various institutions, particularly in the United Kingdom, but also around the world, and how they were overcome. It is hoped that readers will benefit from learning about the different approaches Higher Education institutions took to successfully move from face-to-face to online learning, teaching and assessment, to inform or benchmark their own practices.

Keywords:

Covid-19, pandemic, challenges, opportunities, online learning.