Building Resilience of Tertiary Education Institutions in Africa to Tackle COVID-19 and Future Epidemics: a Multidisciplinary Research Network
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Ekejiuba, Salami, Okonofua, Ukaoha, Ntoimo, Arthur, Delamou, Yaya, Balogun, Odunsi, Wallis WERA – IRN Proposal Topic: Building Resilience of tertiary education institutions in Africa to tackle COVID-19 and future epidemics: A multidisciplinary research network 1) Abstract (not more than 150 words) COVID-19 outbreak has impacted negatively with consequential effects on health challenges, death, isolation and closure of schools. Africans remain at high risk because of poverty. Building resilience of higher institutions can help to overcome this and future pandemics. To date, African universities do not have coordinated resilient actions on ways to tackle the pandemic. If universities do not work together, this and future pandemics will not be defeated. What then will university stakeholders do to build resilience so as to handle the current and future pandemics? The answers to these questions will be the focus of this network project. Researchers will adopt regional analysis while employing mixed research methods. The findings will be useful in helping African universities collaborate with Universities in the south in building strong structures and milestones for overcoming the adverse consequences of the pandemic. It will help to create collaboration and strengthen networks within WERA-IRN global. 2) Research Topic and Plan The COVID-19 pandemic has had very devastating outcomes on educational institutions in many parts of the world. To date, nearly all countries have witnessed the disease, and as of January 15, 2021, over 96 million cases have been recorded worldwide, with an estimated 2 million death, surely one of the most devastating pandemics in modern times. Although sub-Saharan Africa has been less affected than other regions of the world with an estimated 3.2 million cases and 79,000 deaths during the same period, the pandemic has had more severe adverse consequences on the economy and education of African countries as compared to other parts of the world. Not only have many African economies witnessed slow/negative economic growth rates during the period, nearly all educational institutions in the continent were unable to continue their teaching, research and service delivery functions with many locked down completely during the period. By contrast, comparable institutions in more developed parts of the world continued to function despite the pandemic through development and use of online learning platforms. Several examples of failure of tertiary institutions in Africa as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic abound. In Nigeria, nearly all tertiary educational institutions have been closed down since March 10, 2020 when the pandemic started. Of these, only a few (less than 10%) were able to continue some form of online teaching with a lesser proportion of such Universities able to conduct examinations. At the end, many Universities lost the 2020/2021 academic year, with no clear evidence that the problem will be solved anytime soon. Education is the bedrock of development. If tertiary institutions are closed down for months because of a health crisis, it will further delay or hold down the development of the African region, a continent already suffering the travails of poverty, social despair and underdevelopment. It is within this context that this proposal is being fielded. We believe that a network can be established with north to south collaboration to build an understanding of the weaknesses and gaps in educational delivery in sub-Saharan tertiary educational institutions. Such a network based on empirical research and investigations would not only lead the pathway to identify the gaps that need to be addressed but would also provide information on interventions that need to be implemented to address them. In particular, through the network, the participating African institutions and individuals will have the opportunity to learn from innovations that have worked or are currently being implemented in high-income countries to build resilience for institutions to handle the COVID-19 pandemic and similar difficulties that may occur in the future. The goal of the network – the African Network for Building Resilience of Tertiary Institutions (ANBRTI) for Sustainable Education Delivery - is to promote the delivery of quality education and research in Africa’s Universities. The specific objectives of the Network are as follows: 1) Conduct formative mixed methods multi-disciplinary and multi-functional research to enable the understanding of the cultural and social challenges that tertiary institutions face in the delivery of effective pedagogy, research and service delivery during COVID-19 and related pandemics; 2) To use the results of the formative research to identify innovations and interventions that need to be undertaken to build resilience of tertiary educational institutions in Africa in delivery of services during COVID-19 and related pandemics; 3) To mobilize local, regional and international policy and academic stakeholders and relevant agencies to support the use of evidence to build the resilience of African tertiary institutions during pandemics; 4) To document the results to enable the scaling of lessons learnt throughout Africa’s tertiary educational institutions; and 5) Ensure Network sustainability through self-sustaining program design and implementation. Network Activities Some of the activities to be undertaken include the following: 1. Organization of inception and follow-up Network meetings. We will organize an inception meeting to bring together all network members and agree on specific terms of reference. Subsequently, we will hold periodic meetings of the network, which would be rotatory among the African members. Such meetings will initially be held virtually, but if funds become available, we would also hold annual face to face physical meetings. 2. Identification of pilot institutions and needs assessment. The Network will identify at least 10 African countries in which to initiate the project. We would also identify the project leaders in specific institutions in these countries in which to launch the project. Thereafter, we will conduct needs assessment in these institutions to understand the context of educational delivery, pedagogy and research in the institutions. Both qualitative and quantitative research methods will be used for the assessment. The needs assessment will identify the gaps that need to be overcome. The results will include empirical data that the network would use for publication and advocacy. 3. Dissemination meeting on needs assessment report. The network will conduct a dissemination meeting possibly virtually to report the results of the needs assessment. We would also use the opportunity to get feedback from network members on the report and identify interventions that need to be undertaken to address the gaps. 4. Intervention design and implementation. From the list of possible interventions identified from the dissemination meeting, the Network will design and implement relevant multi-disciplinary, multi-country, and multi-institutional interventional research to test the effectiveness of the interventions in promoting resilience in tertiary institutions. We will use empirical research protocols to implement the interventions in order to provide credibility and integrity for the use of the data throughout the African continent. 5. Advocacy, and knowledge transfer (KT) of research findings: The Network will use various platforms to disseminate research findings and encourage all team members to field project processes and outcomes on their institutions’ websites and social media outlets (Facebook, Twitter, etc.). The network will field research processes and outcomes on their websites and social media platforms. We will constitute a WhatsApp group for research group stakeholders; project events will be reported on an e-newsletter. We will ensure all project related research publications will be published on open access basis and will develop summaries of results for use on social media, as well as policy briefs and media reports. We would also develop specific network activities to enable members in African countries to link up with those in more developed parts of the world, so they can exchange experiences on building of resilience for tertiary institutions. 6. Monitoring and Evaluation of Research grants. Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) of the research grants will be a major Committee activity. We will identify three Committee members and staff of CERHI who will form an M&E sub-committee on M&E. We will agree on specific process and outcome indicators for measuring research grants’ success; these will be developed into an M&E protocol to be used by each Research Team. Protocols will be completed quarterly and returned to CERHI; CERHI will aggregate reports and forward to Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research, and World Health Organization every six months. A final detailed narrative report will be submitted at project end. 3) Outcomes expected from establishing an IRN Some of the outcomes expected from the Network include the following: Established network with clear terms of reference, rules and regulations, and minutes of meetings. Also, the network will open its website, where necessary information about its functions will be provided. Network social channels platforms – Facebook, twitter, etc. – will also be established to provide visibility to the network. The website will be linked to the websites of participating institutions and also to