The Effects of COVID -19 on Ethiopian Higher Education and their Implication for the Use of Pandemic-Transformed Pedagogy: ‘Corona Batches’ of Addis Ababa University in Focus

COVID-19-driven school closures have impacted teaching-learning globally in various countries. In Ethiopia, after closing for over six months, universities have reopened and continued the teaching-learning process, making efforts to employ pandemic-transformed pedagogy. Nevertheless, equity and access to learning for all seem to be undermined, particularly in utilising pandemic-transformed pedagogy. This study, therefore, was designed to assess the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on Ethiopian higher education and their implications for the use of pandemic-transformed pedagogy, focusing on the ‘corona batches’ of Addis Ababa University (AAU). To achieve the study’s objectives, an explanatory research design was employed involving academic staff, students, e-learning focal persons, and repository technical support specialists. Data for this study were gathered using three different instruments: documents, a questionnaire, and in-depth interviews. The results revealed that the coronavirus has had a disastrous effect on AAU activities by disrupting the academic calendar of the university and students’ learning. The university was overstretched to continue the teaching-learning process. The crisis-response migration measures employed by AAU during the pandemic were found to be encouraging, but the delivery of online courses was not promising since most instructors had inadequate digital pedagogical skills. Students’ inability to access electronic devices also seemed to hamper the usage of online learning during the pandemic. Further, even though the COVID-19 pandemic has changed traditional pedagogy, the University has given less attention to this issue. Based on the results, recommendations are made, and implications for Ethiopian higher education are presented.