Coronavirus: Student on full scholarship forced to defer his course, others stranded in Ghana

Concerns have been raised about the long-term effects of the coronavirus pandemic on education.

Experts are worried about the socio-economic impact of the pandemic and have expressed fear, especially over the outcome of the prolonged closure of educational institutions which they say, could lead to a loss in human capital and force destitute students to drop out of school.

As of early October, data from UNESCO monitoring show that about 579,936,463 learners are currently affected due to school closures in response to the pandemic.

In Ghana, students are having a tough time with online lectures, partly due to unstable internet connections. The covid-19 pandemic also forced some prospective students to back out on plans to study abroad in the 2020/2021 academic year. Many had to defer their courses and hope that 2021 comes with more opportunities and that, scientist find vaccine for the COVID-19 disease.

So, in this episode of the Study Abroad Series, freelance writer Selorm Helen brings you stories of four Ghanaians who planned to school outside Ghana but had difficulties due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I received my admission letter in July to study Master’s in World Economy and China at Beijing Normal University with full Chinese Government scholarship but I had to give up on studying abroad in China which was my dream because of the challenges brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic,” Nelson Ababara disclosed on the Study Abroad series.

“I had a serious challenge with regards to the network and China is eight hours ahead of us in Ghana. Mostly I had to wake up at midnight at 1am, 2am for online class and combining it with work was very serious. Sometimes I have to get to the office and be dozing off. I thought about it and wrote back to them that I can’t continue with the programme because of the challenges I’m facing. I am enrolling at University of Cape Coast to do my master’s” Nelson revealed.

Dave Bartels was excited when he received his acceptance letter from the University of Prince Edward Island (UPEI) to pursue the Master in Global Affair programme for the 2020/2021 academic year in Canada. He was eager to leave for Canada to start a new academic journey but thanks to Covid19, the MA in Global Affairs programme got cancelled by the University which leads to an automatic deferment of the course for all students enrolled including Dave.

According to him, he had earlier agreed to the option to study online for the fall semester and offline in Madrid for the winter semester until he received this another email from the UPEI which reads, “Due to health concerns and the current limit on international travels, the University of Prince Edward Island have made a difficult decision to defer intake of students into the joint Master of Global Affairs programme for 2020/2021 academic year”.

Gabriella Enchill and Daniel Awomnab started their academic programmes in a Russian university in September this year as international students. They are, however, unable to travel to Russia to start their programmes offline due to the COVID19 situation. According to them, the school had arranged for them to take some of their courses online until visa issues are sorted out for them to come to Russia. But they have challenges with online lecturers.

"I started my process with Higher School of Economics in Russia in 2018 but had some issues so I continued this year and gained admission. We had to do our lectures online and it’s very stressful. Sometimes our network connectivity won’t be strong enough and sometimes too when the lecturers are speaking you won’t hear the exact words they’re saying or the explanation they’re giving. Also, in Ghana here the data packages are very expensive," Gabriella bewailed.

Daniel on the other hand had to quit his job to give full attention to his MA in Political Analysis and Public Policy programme as an international student on a full scholarship.

He said, “In a class of a total of 40 students, just 14 of us haven’t yet arrived in Moscow. There are some lecturers that you’d have the lecturers in class with such students and then with us being projected on a larger screen to give us that classroom experience which is not so real.

It’s taking a toll not just on us but I feel it is extra task on the lecturers and their teaching assistants as well. We’re all feeling the burden. We will have to deal with buying data and at the same time, some are combining their works with the online tuition. You can imagine that experience one has to go through having to respond to your boss’ task and at the same time attending to your lecturers’ assignments.”

Watch the full conversation below;