Teaching during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Nigeria: Secondary School Teachers’ Experiences and Challenges

At the beginning of 2020, most countries around the world were forced to enact total lockdown in order to curb or control the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which had become a global pandemic on an unimaginable scale. On 19 March, 2020, the Federal Ministry of Education in Nigeria announced that all schools should be shut down. The education sector was left with no choice other than to switch to distance learning modes. While many institutions in countries worldwide embraced the adoption of remote or online teaching and learning, developing countries such as Nigeria is just giving it some attention in terms of policy but not without some underlying issues. Consequently, teachers face several issues in adjusting to online teaching-learning mode, while maintaining at least a minimum level of communication with students and supporting their learning mostly through social media platforms such as WhatsApp and Telegram. However, little is known about teachers’ experiences and challenges that arose while teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper presents the results of a survey of secondary school teachers conducted to investigate their experiences and the attendant challenges in the course of discharging their duties during the COVID-19 pandemic in Lagos state, Nigeria.