THE IMPACT OF CORONAVIRUS ON SCIENCE EDUCATION CURRICULUM IN NIGERIA: E-LEARNING A REMEDY

Abstract

The study examined the impact of coronavirus on the science education curriculum in Nigeria. The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic in the year 2020 disrupted normal activities in parts of the world as a result of the spread and contagious nature of the disease. The rate of transmission of the pandemic and the resultant effects in death causality made the whole world to experience an unavoidable lockdown. To Nigeria like other countries in Africa, coping with the surge of pandemic became a dilemma. The effect on education is all-inclusive as it affected the face-to-face quality of teaching and learning, schools’ calendars, academic activities and students’ achievement. Besides, assessing students’ knowledge and skills stipulated in the school curriculum became an uphill task as a result of the non-passage of instructions from the teachers to students during the pandemic. The trends at which schools were closed down affected science education tremendously since everything around a man is science. This paper, therefore, addressed e-learning as a plausible and alternative means of implementing a science education curriculum during any circumstances that will prevent face-to-face teaching and learning. It was, therefore, noted that e-learning has advantages of increasing retention rates, achievement, skills and attitude among the learners and that some abstract concepts in science can be taught through simulation and animations for easy comprehension for students. The study concluded that e-learning provides means of achieving the objectives and goals of the science curriculum.