An investigation into the impact of Covid-19 in academic performance of students in higher education institutions in Namibia

In March 2020, in Namibia covid-19 came about and as result the President of the republic of Namibia declared a National lock down which negatively impacted many sectors of the economy including education. Education in Namibia during the period of March 2020, many schools such as high school and tertiary institutions of high learning closed down due to the pandemic. Upon the closure of all the schools in the country learners and students found themselves at home doing nothing which negatively impacted their performance in 2020 because the introduction online learning came about and many learners and students were trying to adapt to the new environment of learning how to use software and computers to attend their class online. Many families were complaining because they were unable to afford gadgets to provide their young one simply because they did not plan and budget for the gadgets. Traditionally, most schools and universities in Namibia have been not fully using online platform to facilitate teaching and learning hence it was a challenge when covid-19 came about. After lock down schools re-opened
Economic-wise, Covid19 has not just touch one group of people in SADC region. It has affected all people from all walk of life, whether employees or employer, locals or non-locals, business owners or customers, etc. however, the extent to which groups of people are affected vary from groups of people and from different sector and thus the whole economy will then get mixed effects as all these different sectors and different groups of people contribute to one economy (country wise).
Due to the fact that these informal vendors are not well set up and cannot adhere to the COVID rules and lockdown rules, their businesses came to halt in the first lockdown. Even though the governments tried to help the people, e.g Namibia with the distribution of N$ 750 to all unemployed, this was not enough because there were too many and it was mostly once off which will then not make a huge difference on the ground.