Abstract:

The spread of COVID-19 (Corona Virus Disease of 2019) pandemic in Tanzania culminated to the closure of schools, colleges and universities from March 2020. The closure posed huge challenge to 85546 high school examination candidates who were expecting to sit for their final examinations on May 2020. The fear of the unknown new virus and the abrupt suspension of schools left the students with many questions. Self-learning through online forums, media and printed reading materials were adopted as coping mechanism following the school closure.

This paper examines the challenges of school closures during COVID 19 and problems resulted from the adopted coping mechanisms to the advanced secondary school candidates. The study uses oral interviews and documentary sources to achieve the above stated goals. Documentary sources such as government reports, international organization reports and current publications about COVID-19 will be examined. This study argues that school closures during COVID 19 affected the morality and attitude of the candidates. Also candidates from low income families benefited less from coping mechanisms compared to middle and high income families.

Keywords:

COVID 19 challenges, school closures, National examination candidates in Tanzania, remote learning, low income families.