AN INVESTIGATION ON THE IMPACT OF COVID-19 LOCKDOWN ON THE ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

AN INVESTIGATION ON THE IMPACT OF COVID-19 LOCKDOWN ON THE ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was identified in Wuhan city, Hubei Province, China in December 2019 as a pneumonia of unknown origin (Zhu N, Zhang 2020). Later, the international committee on taxonomy of viruses (ICTV) identified the causative agent of COVID-19 as a novel coronavirus, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus−2 (SARS–CoV−2) ( ICTV 2020). COVID-19 outbreak spreads rapidly not only in China, but also worldwide. Hence the World Health Organization (WHO) declared it as a pandemic on March 12, 2020 (WHO 2020). The total number of confirmed cases and mortalities was 23,491,520 and 809,970, respectively, across 216 countries as of August 25, 2020 (WHO 2020).

Several governmental measures was taken to counteract the risk of disease spreading. These measures include travel restrictions, mandatory quarantines for travelers, social distancing, bans on public gatherings, schools and universities closure, business closures, self-isolation, asking people to work at home, curfews, and lockdown (Paital B 2020). Authorities in several countries worldwide declared either lockdown or curfew as a measure to break the fast spread of virus infection (Paital B 2020). These measures have a negative worldwide effect on the business, education, health, and tourism etc (Pragholapati A 2020).

In Nigeria, the Federal Ministry of Education directed all educational institutions in Nigeria to shut down and allow students to go home as cases of reported COVID-19 increased rapidly (Ezinna 2020). The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education, Sonny Echono, told reporters on 19 March that the directive was part of the country’s overall strategy to contain the spread of the virus. However this scenario effect was not just limited the  closure of many sectors of the economy but on a deeper view it did affected the academic performance of many students with secondary school students inclusive.

Academic performance refers to how well an individual or a student is able to perform when given a learning task, activity or one’s achievement in standardized tests in academic pursuit. Academic performance also refers to how students deal with their studies and how they cope with or accomplish different tasks given to them by their teacher. Academic performance in this context is related to content and intellect, meaning that academic performance depends on the learner’s competence.

Due to the suspension of classroom teaching in many schools in Nigeria, students commitment level and consistence has decreased resulting to poor and unimpressive academic performance. Thus, this study seeks to investigate how the coronavirus lockdown affected the academic performance of secondary school students.

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