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Howard University Journal of African Studies (HUJAS)

Abstract

Higher Education in Africa has been hit hard by the impact of COVID-19 because of overpopulation and infrastructure shortage at all levels of higher learning system. In such a context where both physical and social distancing measures are counterintuitive to people raised in gregarious social values, the only decision to take seems to be a forced pause until the situation returns to normalcy. In Senegal, universities closed, and students were sent home pursuant to a presidential decree issued on March 16, 2020. However, seven years earlier, the new political authorities of Senegal had launched an ambitious reform agenda through a national consultation on the future of higher education known as CNAES (Concertation Nationale sur l’Avenir de l’Enseignement Supérieur). One of the 78 recommendations was about wider introduction of IT in teaching strategies. Unfortunately, most of the recommendations were ignored. Only when the COVID-19 pandemic hit did some of the key recommendations get revived, beginning with the introduction of bimodal education with more distance learning. Embryo platforms in the different university colleges and schools have now received the attention, investments, and care they had been awaiting to make e-learning a new reality in Senegalese higher education. Against this backdrop, the present article examines the ways in which COVID-19, despite being a big threat, has triggered a shift towards the implementation of some important reforms in the Senegalese higher education teaching and learning system, with a focus on digital learning.

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