Graduate School of Education, Peking University, Beijing, ChinaChina
Department of Pharmacy, School of Health Sciences, University of Zambia, Lusaka, ZambiaZambia
Department of Pharmacy, School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Mulungushi University, Kabwe, ZambiaZambia
Also available as PDF (figures and tables appear in the PDF).
Background The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has negatively affected the education sector globally. This has resulted in learning institutions adopting e-learning techniques. E-learning implementation in higher education continues to gain prominence in both developed and developing countries. Most universities are exploring different ways of using information and communications technology (ICT). However, ICT remains a challenge more especially for students who come from rural areas. Aim This study was aimed at exploring the factors that affect access to e-learning among rural-based pharmacy students in Zambia. Methods A qualitative case study was conducted among ten (10) purposively sampled pharmacy students at the University of Zambia. The study participants were from the Manying, a district of North-Western Province, the Sinda district of Eastern Province, the Nalolo district of Western Province, the Chipili district of Luapula Province and the Mbala district of Northern Province. Semi structured interviews were used to collect data from the respondents. Data were analyzed using the framework analysis. The sociodemographic characteristics indicate that ten (10) respondents were drawn from Zambia’s five (5) provinces. Six qualitative themes were generated these included devices used for e-learning; the effectiveness of the devices; student performance; internet connectivity; and electrification of the houses. Key findings suggest that the most commonly used device was a smartphone, which posed challenges to effective learner participation in e-learning. Poor internet connectivity, non-electrification of students’ houses, electricity outages, and costs-associated with internet use negatively affected students in accessing online learning and could adversely affect their academic activities and performance. Conclusion The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively affected access to e-learning among rural pharmacy students in Zambia. The implications of the challenges faced by the rural pharmacy students are that their academic activities and performance were negatively affected. Therefore, this posed a threat to the rights to universal access to education of the rural students who were mostly venerable.
Keywords: Academic performance; COVID-19; Coronavirus disease; E-Learning; Online learning; Pandemic; Pharmacy students
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has negatively affected the education sector globally. This has resulted in
learning institutions adopting e-learning techniques. E-learning implementation in higher education continues to gain promi-
nence in both developed and developing countries. Most universities are exploring different ways of using information and
communications technology (ICT). However, ICT remains a challenge more especially for students who come from rural areas.
This study was aimed at exploring the factors that affect access to e-learning among rural-based pharmacy students in Zambia.
A qualitative case study was conducted among ten (10) purposively sampled pharmacy students at the University of Zambia.
The study participants were from the Manying, a district of North-Western Province, the Sinda district of Eastern Province, the
Nalolo district of Western Province, the Chipili district of Luapula Province and the Mbala district of Northern Province. Semi-
structured interviews were used to collect data from the respondents. Data were analyzed using the framework analysis. The
sociodemographic characteristics indicate that ten (10) respondents were drawn from Zambia’s five (5) provinces. Six qualitative
themes were generated these included devices used for e-learning; the effectiveness of the devices; student performance; internet
connectivity; and electrification of the houses. Key findings suggest that the most commonly used device was a smartphone,
which posed challenges to effective learner participation in e-learning. Poor internet connectivity, non-electrification of students’
houses, electricity outages, and costs-associated with internet use negatively affected students in accessing online learning and
could adversely affect their academic activities and performance.
The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively affected access to e-learning among rural pharmacy students in Zambia. The implica-
tions of the challenges faced by the rural pharmacy students are
affected. Therefore, this posed a threat to the rights to universal access to education of the rural students who were mostly
venerable.
Academic performance; COVID-19; Coronavirus disease; E-Learning; Online learning; Pandemic; Pharmacy students.
cc Copyright 2021 Mwila K. This is an open-access article distributed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which allows that their academic activities and performance were negatively
he origin of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) from Chi-
na is marked as one of the greatest challenges to public health T 1,2 in human history. COVID-19 emerged from Wuhan City of Chi-
na in 2019 and spread rapidly to other countries in 2020 causing
the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare it a pandemic.3,4
COVID-19 posed many negative impacts to many sectors across
many nations including their educational systems.5
The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively affected educa-
tional systems worldwide, leading to the total physical closure of
schools, universities, and colleges in many countries.6 By mid-April
2020, approximately 1.7 billion learners were affected worldwide
due to school closures in response to the pandemic. According
to UNESCO monitoring, 191 countries implemented nationwide
closures as well as local closures, impacting about 98.4% of the
world’s student population.7
In the wake of continuity education for universities and
colleges, there was an implementation of e-learning.8-10 E-learning implementation in higher education continues to gain prominence
in both developed and developing countries, and while most uni-
versities in Information and Communication Technology (ICT)-
rich environments are exploring different ways of using ICT and
multimedia resources to enhance teaching and learning, the same
cannot be said about ICT-challenged environments. The disparity
in terms of access to e-learning in different geographical locations
of the country and rural areas may be termed challenging in this 11-13 context. Nevertheless, the question of successful and sustain-
able e-learning implementation remains a challenge, particularly in 14,15 ICT-challenged environments.
Zambia, a country in the Center of the Southern African
Region only had its first two cases reported on the 18 of March
2020. This resulted in the Zambian government declaring that all
schools, colleges and universities be closed with immediate effect
on Friday 20 March 2020. Because of this, most students or learn-
ers were forced to stay home and continue with their education via
online platforms. Despite this unfortunate situation, students were
expected to learn with the use of Web 2.0 tools. Unfortunately, ac-
cessible computers, phones, laptops, and tablets either at home or
school were not affordable by the majority of the students. How-
ever, policymakers and significant partners had anticipatory hopes
to see learning go in a different direction in Zambia during the
COVID-19 crisis. The opportunities after the crisis lie in the fact
that lecturers and students will learn new ICT skills and blended
learning will be a new culture in the Zambian educational systems.
The coming of technology has impacted almost all areas
of life including the education sector that has been witnessing a
paradigm shift. The shift was made due to restrictions imposed
by the ministry of health as a result of the COVID-19 crisis, and
nearly all higher learning institutions in Zambia had shifted to
digital learning with immediate effect. The University of Zambia
(UNZA) Senate also resolved that in this closure, learning would
proceed through e-learning platforms like Zoom, Moodle, and As-
tria, among others. Subsequently, academic staff was requested to expeditiously secure learning support material for them to facili-
tate teaching and learning using the e-learning platforms. Similarly, students were also guided to make sure that they registered and
got connected to the e-learning platforms to avoid missing out
on learning. This experience is adopted in the design of current
study as it factors in the involvement of students as part of the 3,4 study sample so that they could share their experiences on how
they accessed e-learning during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis,
taking into consideration the bottlenecks associated with the rural
environment.
The literature plays a very important role in giving rise to
the need to understand what kind of electronic devices were used
by the rural students when accessing e-learning in their geographi-
cal settings and establishing the effectiveness of these devices used
during the COVID-19 pandemic. It can be argued that Zambia has
a massive literature gap on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic
on the education system. Therefore, this study endeavours to fill
that literature gap by profiling the e-learning experiences of rural
students during the closure of schools.
8-10
This study was underpinned by the e-learning theory. The theory
comprises three elements as eluded by Dabbagh17 defined through
a theory-based framework that relates instructional strategies,
learning technologies,, and pedagogical models or constructs. Dab-
bagh’s framework (2005) includes multiple dimensions, such as the
way people learn (open/flexible way), with the learning strategy (collaboration, exploration, problem-solving) and also with tech-
nology deployed in the learning process. “Its pedagogical model and cognitive models or theoretical constructs are derived from knowledge acquisi-
tion models or views about cognition and knowledge, which form the basis for
e-learning theory. In other words, they are the mechanisms by which we link th theory to practice”.18 From a pedagogical point of view, these models
are mechanisms that link e-learning theory to e-learning practice
(Figure 1).17 The pedagogical models in e-learning are open learn-
ing, distributed learning, learning communities, communities of
practice, and knowledge building communities.
Instructional strategies assist learning, such as collabo-
ration, articulation, reflection, and role-playing among others. In-
11 structional strategies operationalize the pedagogical models, since
strategies consist of general approaches to a learning model, in
other words; instructional strategies are enablers to learning. The
instructional strategy facet of e-learning theory shapes the current
study as it explores the modes of e-learning delivery to rural stu-
dents in Zambia.
E-learning concept refers to learning via electronic sourc-
es, providing interactive distance learning. Today the e-learning
concept, apart from technology, includes learning strategies, learn-
ing methods, and lately is very much directed to the vast possibili-
ties of content diffusion and connection. The technological aspect
of the theory informs the research question on the type of devices
used by rural students to access e-learning. Therefore, this study
was conducted to explore the factors that affect access to e-learn-
ing during the COVID-19 pandemic among pharmacy students in
Zambia.
Figure 1. E-Learning Theory-Based Design Framework Figure 1 indicates that the theory-based design framework for e-learning emphasizes the transformative interaction between pedagogical models, instructional strategies, and learning technolo- gies. It may be contended that situated or distributed cognition is an appropriate foundational knowledge perspective from which
to develop pedagogical models and constructs for e-learning and
offers a theory-into-practice framework that characterizes the in-
structional implications of situated cognition and guides the design
of e-learning. This interaction is extensively explored in this study
and how it ultimately affects academic performance for rural stu-
dents.
This was a qualitative case study that was conducted among pharmacy students at the University of Zambia. This study was con-
ducted amidst the COVID-19 pandemic that has disrupted physical classes in Zambia. This was a preliminary study of which a
larger study will be conducted that will comprise of students from
different programmes of study
The total sample size for the current study was ten (10) students
who came from five (5) out of the ten (10) provinces of Zambia;
two (2) students were picked from a rural district of the five (5)
provinces. The respective rural districts were Manyinga of North-
western Province, Sinda of Eastern Province, Nalolo of Western
Province, Chipili of Luapula Province and Mbala of Northern
Province. The districts met the researcher’s desired core charac-
teristic of being defined as rural. The students were all registered
third-year Pharmacy students at the University of Zambia in 2021.
The third-year pharmacy students were picked because during the
physical closure of classes, they had remained to conduct their practicum. A sample size of ten (10) was arrived at because satu-
ration was reached. Using a sample size of ten (10) in qualitative
studies has been reported to be effective and enough provided the 19-21 participants give more information relevant to the study.
The respondents for the interviews were purposively sampled.
Kombo and Tromp, 2006, suggest that in purposive sampling,
the researcher targets a group of people believed to be reliable
for the study.22 The Snowball sampling technique was specifically
used in this study. Snowball sampling is a recruitment method that
employs research into participants’ social networks to access spe-
cific populations. One student who comes from a rural area was
identified, who then, in turn, identified other students from rural
districts of different provinces of Zambia.
The semi-structured face to face interviews were used to collect
data from the respondents. The method is advantageous because it
allows direct questions to respondents about their activities. Semi-
structured interviews were opted because of their flexibility in that
they allow more specific issues to be addressed, elicit interpreta-
tions from the respondents, follow-up on the points that were not
clear in the narrations of the respondents were made and probing
where necessary. The interview guide also helped the researcher to
be more systematic and to keep track of the goals of the study. The
participants were chosen because they were available during school
closures and the interviews were conducted strictly adhering to the
COVID-19 preventive measures.
Framework analysis was used to analyze the data. In the analysis
stage, the gathered data was sifted, charted and sorted per key is-
sues and themes. The themes were identified and drawn from the
responses to the questions given by the respondents. The frame-
work approach offers the researcher a systematic structure to man-
age, analyze and identify themes, enabling the development and
maintenance of a transparent audit trail. It is particularly useful
with large volumes of text and is suitable for use with different
qualitative approaches. Ward et al23 eludes that the Framework
analysis is flexible during the analysis process in that it allows the
user to either collect all the data and then analyze it or do data
analysis during the collection process.
The sociodemographic characteristics (Table 1) indicate that the
ten (10) respondents were selected from the five (5) out of ten (10)
provinces of Zambia. The respective rural districts were Manyinga
of Northwestern Province, Sinda of Eastern province, Nalolo
of Western province, Chipili of Luapula province and Mbala of
Northern province. The students were all third-year Pharmacy stu-
dents at the University of Zambia as shown in Table 1.
Table 1. Sociodemographic Characteristics of the Respondents
Northwestern Manyinga Bachelor of Pharmacy 2
Eastern Sinda Bachelor of Pharmacy 2
Western Nalolo Bachelor of pharmacy 2
Luapula Chipili Bachelor of Pharmacy 2
Northern Mbala Bachelor of Pharmacy 2
Figure 2 shows that there was a male predominance of 6
(60%) in this study.
The effects of COVID-19 on the academic performance
of the respondents are given in Table 2. Assessment 1 was done
before closure of the university while assessment 2 was done dur-
Figure 3. Effect of COVID-19 on Academic Performance of Rural Pharmacy Students
Figure 2. Gender of Respondents ing closure of the university. As indicated, many about 90% of
Respondents the students had their academic performance based on the assess-
ments they wrote during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Table 2 shows responses from the participants regarding
factors that affect their e-learning during the COVID-19 pandem-
ic. The results have been presented in six (6) different themes.
Figure 3 Effect of COVID-19 on academic performance
of rural pharmacy students.
The Figure 3 indicates the document analysis of the test
results of the 10 students, test one was conducted before the clo-
sure of the university while test 2 was conducted online during the
closure of the university due the COVID-19 pandemic. The test
Table 2. Framework Analysis Table North-Western Province Eastern Province Western Province Luapula Province Northern -Province
• Both respondents indi- mobile phone and a laptop to Electronic other one relied on the • One of the students stated cated that he relied on the access e-learning.
device used mobile phone only. that he could not use his phone to attend online • The other student entirely for e-learning •“I was using a mobile phone, laptop because he lived in lessons. relied on the phone as he had
• The respondents effectiveness of the phone described the phone as and laptop to the applications not being effective in that were used to access attending an online lesson. e-learning.
Effectiveness information the screen of the tools as not very •“my phone had issues • Some applications were not of the device mobile phone is not large effective due to poor with the battery,I needed user friendly to the students. to charge it every after an hour”. They highlighted some of the
• The respondents indicated that internet connectivity was a challenge. internet service network Internet • I used to feel bad was •“yes my very bad experience was writing a test and the page is •“The network was providers, and this was national connectivity just praying sometimes unstable during wide”.
class; hence I would be • The students missed some cut off.” online lectures due to poor
• One of the students bundles was high.
described the cost of • The respondents indicated • The students indicated that e-learning as fair. that e-learning was e-learning needed Cost of • This suggests that the expensive as they were • Subject lamented about the cost high-quality electronic devices e-learning student did not face expected to always have of internet data bundles. that could connect to a 4G many adverse financial money to buy bundles for network which the subject challenges to access the •“I think with the devices it e-learning. was not so much of an issue
• The performance of both students during online learning went down compared to the performance during • The students lamented during the period of e-learning. • Asked if they were on-site learning. that their performance was • "I felt frustrated; this was because exempted from house •“My performance on drastically affected by my performance had drastically gone chores? one of the students Student campus was much better e-learning,“my performance down.I was not performing as well as replied that responded that performance than when I was home, for went down because when we I was doing during the time as was “It was difficult for parents example at home there just opened we were expected in school.What was hurting more to understand how e-learning are no facilities such as the to have physical tests and my was that I am in my third year and I works because it was quite new, library”. performance was really bad”. am expected to make points for my sometime they would think you • This indicates that the students were not able to have access to a conducive environment for studying.
• The students used mobile phones • One of the students used • Both students depended to access learning.
the phone and laptop to on mobile phone to access • One student depended on a •“I was using an android phone access e-learning, while the e-learning.
that I bought in 2017 when I was in Secondary School, it is an old phone that sometimes switches off on its own, and right now as I am speaking I and sometimes the laptop but a non-electrified house and no laptop. have left it charging”.
I mostly had challenges with his laptop could only sustain • The students did not have laptops the laptop". power for two hours.
because they were unaffordable.
• The students linked the • One of the students rated the effectiveness of the phone as 5 out of 10.
•“In terms of displaying the • The students described the • The phone was not effective as it was old and could not support some applications.
enough. And when holding the connectivity.
phone you would find that your neck would pain after applications used as Zoom, holding for a long”.
Moodle and Google meet.
• One student cited internet • She described internet • Internet connectivity was connectivity as a challenge in connectivity as a big very unstable. e-learning. challenge as it was most • Both students described internet • Asked to recall any bad unstable. connectivity as unstable. experiences they had with •“Yes I remember at some point there was a time when we • When asked how she felt • Asked to recall any day when internet connectivity one had difficulties with the three when she was cut off due to there was poor connectivity. student said; connectivity. One of the students stated; •“You would find that you are
that we open when I was writing reloading and before you even schools soon because my pharmaceutical chemistry test and finish it has submitted for you. performance went down. just after answering 20 questions Sometimes the page is not It made me disturbed out of 33 my internet was disrupted, moving to the next page. internet connectivity.“This because you would find that meaning that I had left 13 questions Sometimes the page would not usually happened where I could you don't know what the unanswered”. change but time is moving, and be cut off because of poor lecturer talk about when the system would submit when internet connectivity”. you were cut off. the time has elapsed”.
• Both students indicated that the cost of buying internet
• One of the students indicated that the cost of the laptop and the phone was not a big problem.
could not afford.
the internet.
because I already had these devices before the pandemic”.
• The students reported that • Both students from Sinda that they performed better district indicated that their • Both students described their with physical onsite learning performance was much academic performance as bad than the e-learning.
better with the physical learning on campus than with e-learning.
• Suggest minimal student lecture interaction during e-learning as a factor that contributed to poor performance by the students.
• The other factor highlighted graduation grade”. would not just want to help but by one of the students was probably you would just want to house chores, as a hindrance play with the laptop”.
to smooth learning.
• Both students lived in electrified houses but faced challenges of power cuts because the electricity power supply company undertook load • Both students were living Electrification shedding. in electrified houses but also of the house • This suggests that the complained about the issue of devices that the students power outages.
depended on for e-learning were sometimes off due to loadshedding (electricity outages).
Figure 4. Mapping of e-learning Experiences scores for 9 out of 10 students show a reduction at varying degrees this suggest that students performed better during physical learn- ing than online learning.
The Figure 4 summarizes the e-learning experiences of
the students sampled for the five (5) provinces, it is noted that
the students faced similar challenges at varying degrees. Difficulties
faced by the students ultimately negatively affected their academic
performance.
E-learning has been embraced by nearly all teaching institutions
globally, including Zambia during the COVID-19 pandemic.24 The
process of e-learning rests on several factors including the quality
of the internet and speed, ease accessibility to online resources,
the availability of suitable learning infrastructures along the readi-
ness of both lecturers and students to adjust to this technology.
In the current study, we explored the factors that affect access to • The students were living in • Both students lived in houses that were not non-electrified houses.
electrified“My house was • This negatively affected the not electrified so I used to go • Their houses were not electrified students as they needed to to my friend's house that was and this adversely affected their take their mobile phones for electrified, however,I could studies.
charging at the not go there anytime I had to neighbourhood at a fee.
make sure she was home it was her parent’s home”.
e-learning during the COVID-19 pandemic among pharmacy stu-
dents in Zambia.
The findings from the generated themes suggest that students
coming from different rural provincial areas faced very similar
difficulties in accessing e-learning. It was established that all the
students depended on their mobile phones as the main device for
their e-learning. This finding is also highlighted by a study that was
conducted in Ghana, which reported that distance learning stu-
dents find it easier to use a smartphone in their learning activities.27
Six of the students did not have laptops except for the students
coming from western and eastern provinces, what that meant was
that the students without laptops could not adequately do some as-
signments on their own, but had to take them for typing which af-
fected the quality of their work. This concern raised by the partici- 25,26 pants in this study was also cited by educators in the United States
of America (USA) after the lockdown due to COVID-19. Educa-
tors were worried that not all children have laptops or the Internet
in their homes.28 The lack of computers/laptops and computer
labs was reported in another study as one of the factors causing
challenges in students accessing online learning.9 Additionally, in
a descriptive cross-sectional study conducted at Liaquat College
of Medicine and Dentistry. The students preferred using mobile
phones to laptops during e-learning.29 This could be because of in-
creased teacher-student interactions and the improvement of com-
munication in the classroom when using mobile phones than other 30 31 devices.30 Roberts et al31 also established in their study that students
preferred using mobile phones during e-learning.
The availability of appropriate and adequate technology is the
mainstay of the ultimate delivery of e-learning. Technology helps
in improving the quality of the e-learning experience through
content integration and communication of learning material con-
tent at reliable speed and acceptable response times especially in a
remote e-learning setup.32 It was established that all the students
from the five provinces described their tools as not being very ef-
fective at varying degrees, one student from the Eastern province
had a better phone and laptop to access e-learning than the rest
of the students whilst the student from Luapula province had the
worst phone that was bought four years ago. His phone proved to
be unreliable, such that it could switch off on its own during on-
line classes. The two students from Western and Eastern provinces
who had laptops both described them as not effective because they
needed much stable internet connectivity and more data bundles
compared to the phones. Studies have reported challenges faced
during e-learning such as poor internet, unreliable phones and in- 33-35 terruptions during teaching. Considering the ineffectiveness of
the devices used by the students in accessing e-learning, the re-
searchers infer that the conditions in the rural districts of Zambia
are not favourable to support e-learning.
Eight (8) out of the ten (10) students described e-learning as a
financial burden. The students from Eastern Province were rela-
tively financially stable compared to the rest of the students. The
students associated the costs to mainly their inability to buy good
Android operating system based smartphones and laptops. The
cost was also mainly incurred on buying internet data bundles.
The most affected student was a female student from the Western
Province who despite having the laptop missed 75% of her classes
mainly because of poor connectivity and lack of money to buy
internet data bundles. The high cost of learning associated with
e-learning is in concord with the report by Adeoye et al.36 Despite
this unfortunate situation of the closure of schools due to the CO-
VID-19 pandemic, students were expected to learn with the use of
web 2.0 tools. Unfortunately, accessible computers, smartphones,
laptops and tablets either at home or school were not affordable
by the majority of the students. Similarly, the use of online learn-
ing platforms comes with huge costs more especially to university
students.37 A study by Mahdy on the impact of COVID-19 on the
academic performance of students established that availability,
speed and cost of the internet were some of the common problems associated with e-learning especially for students who live in
provincial and rural areas as these can hinder proper delivery of
study materials by both students and lecturers.38 Another study that
was conducted in Jordan cited the poor economic conditions as
challenges faced by students from the rural and remote areas dur-
ing e-learning amid COVID-19.39 Accessibility to online learning 29 4 is affected by the cost attached to it.4 Therefore, there is a need
to consider the cost associated with attending online learning by
University students.
All of the ten (10) participating respondent student described the
internet connectivity as unstable at varying degrees; the most af-
fected student was from the Western province that had to ride a
bicycle for 65 Km to the nearest place that had at least stable in-
ternet connectivity. The poor connectivity adversely affected stu-
dents as they had to miss most of the lectures due to instability.
This finding is in line with the assertion by Awidi14 that success-
ful and sustainable e-learning implementation remains a challenge,
particularly in ICT-challenged environments. Internet challenges 9,14 make it difficult to conduct and attend online learning.9,14 It was
notable that students from rural districts of Zambia were faced
with the critical challenge of poor internet connectivity. Poor inter-
net connectivity is a hindrance to quality education among students 34,40 coming from rural areas. Another study that was conducted in
South Africa highlighted similar findings where students in rural
areas were faced with challenges of internet connectivity during
online learning amid the COVID-19 pandemic.41 It is important to
note that adequate infrastructures capable of supporting a success-
ful deployment of e-learning based projects are needed. That is
good internet connectivity and proper devices needed for sharing
learning content with potential learners.32
All the students except two from Eastern province were living in
in home had no electricity it presenting difficulties in charging their
laptops and mobile phones. This caused them to miss lectures be-
cause they sometimes had to take their mobile phones for charg-
ing during online classes. Further, the lack of electrification of the
students’ houses also affected their ability to study, especially at
night. According to Awidi14 he described e-learning is the use of
ICT devices, Internet and World Wide Web resources, as instru-
ments to construct knowledge, to support teaching and learning in
synchronous and/or asynchronous modes. Non-electrification of
student’s houses hinders them from accessing e-learning.4 Similarly,
a lack of electrification and power outages in some areas negatively
affects students’ online learning and has been cited as among the
inequalities affecting access to education.42 The findings suggest
that asynchronous modes of learning where online lessons can be
recorded and students watch at their own convenient time should
be explored to abate the challenges associated with lack of electri-
fication and poor internet connectivity.
All the ten students interviewed indicated that their academic per-
formance had decreased during the e-learning period and this was
attributed to some factors such as divided attention between house
chores and online class time, poor internet connectivity, lack of
electrification of their houses, and the high cost of internet data
bundles. Though the assessments used in this study indicated that
nine students had their academic performance reduced during as
a result of the effect of COVID-19. It was, therefore, notable that
e-learning, if not cautiously implemented may widen the gap in
terms of access to education between the rural and urban students.
Similar findings have been reported by other scholars. In a study
by Sintema, it was reported that the academic performance of
students reduced as a result of COVID-19 and the introduction
of e-learning.43 Similarly, a recent study among pharmacy students
indicated that the students were worried about their academic per-
formance as online learning was the first time to them and the
COVID-19 pandemic had disturbed them mentally.44 In this re-
gard, schools, colleges and universities must put in place measures
to address the gaps that exist between rural and urban students in
accessing online learning. On the other hand, one study reviewed
that students thought that e-learning was better than traditional
face to face learning as it provided convenience and portability
as students can access it anywhere.45 A cross-sectional study con-
ducted by Mahdy38 to analyze the impact of COVID-19 lockdown
on the academic performance of veterinary medical students and
researchers reviewed that most of the participants 96.7% believed
that COVID-19 pandemic lockdown affected their academic per-
formance with varying degrees. Despite the students’ worries
about academic performance, online learning must be embraced
and implemented in the best way that supports continued learn-
ing.46
This study is important as it provides information on the chal-
lenges faced by rural pharmacy students at the University of Zam-
bia and rural distance learning students engaged elsewhere. These
challenges are not only limited to pharmacy students but all rural
University students in Zambia. Therefore, these findings can help
in developing strategies aimed at addressing the challenges faced by
rural university students. The limitation to this study was that it was
purely qualitative in nature; it did not use a randomized process to
collect data, hence making it susceptible to biases. However, this
limitation was abated somewhat in the selection of the participants.
It was established that the rural students largely depended on
smartphones to access e-learning during the closure of schools as
a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Even when some students
sometimes used the laptops, they described them as not being reli-
able because they demanded much more stable internet connectiv-
ity and constant power supply to access online lectures. Almost all
the students described the smartphones and laptops as not being
very effective in accessing e-learning, this was attributed to the low
quality of the smartphones that they possessed such as inability to
sustain power for a longer period, smaller screens to display legible
PowerPoint slides and living in a non-electrified house. The re-
spondents unanimously described e-learning as a huge cost as they were coming from vulnerable families, they all indicated that e-
learning needed high-quality electronic devices and adequate data
bundles which were not within their means. Key among the chal-
lenges faced by the students was poor internet connectivity in rural
areas; some respondents had to walk long distances to the nearest
place that had at least stable internet. The implications of the chal-
lenges faced by the rural students are that their academic perfor-
mance was drastically negatively affected; therefore, this posed a
threat to the rights to universal access to education of the rural
students who were mostly venerable.
1. Learning institutions need to put in strategies to mitigate the
challenges faced by vulnerable students during the COVID-19
pandemic that has negatively affected the education sector. Strate-
gies may include provision of asynchronous learning so that stu-
dents can be attending online classes at their own convenience.
2. Government should come up with initiatives to support vulner-
able students with devices such as smartphones and laptops during
the period of online learning.
The authors are grateful to all the pharmacy students who took
part in this study and the University of Zambia e-Library for pro-
viding access to the majority of the articles that were used in this
study.
No external funds were received for this publication.
This study was approved by the University of Zambia Health
Sciences Research Ethics Committee (UNZAHSREC). Protocol
ID: 2020310174. IORG no: 0009227 IRB no: 00011000 FWA no:
00026270. After IRB ethical approval, regulatory approval was
obtained from the National Health Research Authority (NHRA).
Consent to participate in this study was obtained from the stu-
dents.
The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.