Effect of COVID-19 on Education in Ghana: Narratives from Primary, Junior High and Senior High School children

Among the pandemics that have affected human existence, the Covid-19 virus with uncertain genesis has deracinated the natural structure and cycle of everything around us. Education and especially children’s social life has been jeopardized forcing us to find new ways of doing things in the quest to survive. This study investigated the effect of covid-19 on education from the perspective of primary and high school children staying at home in Ghana. Due to the pandemic, the descriptive study drew respondents across the country using snowball sampling via the internet (social media, email, WhatsApp, etc). Results lead to major conclusions that children employed both manual and/or online methods of learning at home mostly relying on parents’ electronic gadgets and/or computers. They faced mostly issues of bad internet connectivity and expensive data while learning online. Majority (54.6%) claimed they want to resume school amid the pandemic because they mostly miss their friends and teachers and also sometimes needs help studying at home. The strong minority (45.4%) prefer to stay home for fear of infecting their family members. The study recommends an effective but healthy method of educational continuity (small contact hours and online studies) for our youth in this new normal.