Sri Lankan Lecturers Were Left to Sink or Swim During COVID-19 Pandemic, New Study Finds

 

Sri Lankan Lecturers Were Left to Sink or Swim During COVID-19 Pandemic, New Study Finds

...Research from a team of international academics reveals the hidden toll of emergency online teaching on university staff in developing higher education systems

When the COVID-19 pandemic forced universities around the world to close their doors overnight, lecturers in Sri Lanka faced a crisis that went far beyond simply moving their classes online. A new study published in the *Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities Research Fundamentals* has laid bare the scale of pedagogical disruption experienced by academics who were expected to continue teaching with little preparation, inadequate infrastructure, and almost no institutional support.

The paper, *Pedagogical Disruption and Lecturer Preparedness During Emergency Online Teaching: Evidence from Sri Lankan Higher Education*, brings together researchers from institutions across the United Kingdom, Bangladesh, and Nigeria to examine what really happened when the switch was flipped.

"What we found was not a story of smooth digital transition," said lead author *Chrishelle Wickramasekara*, of Global Banking School and Bath Spa University Partnership in Birmingham. "It was a story of academics doing extraordinary things under extraordinarily difficult conditions, largely on their own."

The study draws on qualitative evidence gathered from Sri Lankan university lecturers during the pandemic, capturing their firsthand experiences of adapting to online delivery while managing surging workloads, unreliable internet connections, and the emotional weight of an unfolding global emergency.

*Dr Kennedy Oberhiri Obohwemu*, a co-author and Director of PENKUP Research Institute in Birmingham, said the findings challenged comfortable assumptions about digital readiness in higher education. "We often speak about the digital divide as though it only affects students," he noted. "But lecturers in resource-constrained environments were themselves operating without the tools, training, or bandwidth they needed to do their jobs."

The paper identifies several interlocking pressures that converged on teaching staff during the crisis. These include gaps in digital competence, the collapse of familiar instructional design frameworks, and the near-impossible task of rebuilding entire courses for online delivery in a matter of days.

*Dr Chika Oguguo* also of PENKUP Research Institute, highlighted the instructional dimension of the crisis. "Lecturers had spent careers developing pedagogical approaches suited to face-to-face environments. Emergency remote teaching didn't just change the platform — it dismantled the architecture of how they taught."

For many staff, the professional strain was compounded by silence from their institutions. Rather than receiving structured support or additional resources, lecturers were largely left to problem-solve individually, improvising solutions that often came at significant personal cost.

*Oladipo Vincent Akinmade* of the University of Warwick's Digital Health and Rights Project and a co-author on the study, pointed to the broader implications for academic labour. "This was not just a logistical challenge. It was a moment that exposed deep structural vulnerabilities in how higher education systems value and support their teaching staff."

The emotional dimension of the crisis features prominently in the research. Lecturers reported not only exhaustion and anxiety, but a profound sense of professional dislocation — a feeling that the norms and identities they had built around teaching had been suddenly made irrelevant.

*Dr Festus Ituah* of Regent College London, said the study deliberately foregrounds lecturer wellbeing as an academic labour issue rather than a personal one. "Burnout is not a failure of individual resilience. When the system does not provide the conditions people need to do their work, the emotional consequences are systemic, not personal."

*Daniel Obande Haruna* of St. Mary's University London, drew attention to the psychological dimension of the findings. "Lecturers were grieving the loss of the classroom while simultaneously being expected to reinvent it. The emotional labour involved in that has been almost entirely invisible in policy conversations about pandemic education."

The paper is particularly notable for its insistence that lecturers were not passive recipients of institutional decisions, but active — if severely constrained — agents in sustaining teaching continuity. Despite operating within what the authors describe as "fragile digital ecosystems," many staff went to considerable lengths to protect their students' learning experiences.

*Dr Ulunma Ikwuoma Mariere*, of Bayelsa Medical University in Nigeria and a contributing researcher, said this framing was deliberate. "We wanted to resist narratives that position lecturers as people things simply happened to. They were making difficult professional judgements every single day, often without any guidance."

*Kaleka Nuka-Nwikpasi* of the University of Chester, noted that the findings carry lessons well beyond Sri Lanka. "Higher education systems globally are facing recurring disruptions — whether from pandemics, climate events, or conflict. This research asks whether we have learned anything about supporting academics when the next crisis comes."

*Sayma Akter Jannat* of Jagannath University in Bangladesh and a contributing researcher, emphasised the importance of including developing-country perspectives in international scholarship on emergency education. "Most of the dominant literature on COVID-19 and online teaching reflects experiences in well-resourced Western universities. The Sri Lankan context tells a very different and very important story."

The paper's conclusions are unsparing. Without sustained investment in digital infrastructure, professional development, and institutional welfare frameworks, the authors warn that lecturers in developing higher education systems will remain acutely vulnerable when future crises strike.

*Dr Obioma Chidumaga Aririsukwu* of St. François Medical Center in Abuja and a co-author, said the stakes could not be higher. "If we do not take seriously what lecturers experienced during COVID-19 — the isolation, the overwork, the lack of support — we are setting up the next generation of academics, and the students who depend on them, to go through it all again."

The study was conducted by researchers from institutions across UK, Nigeria and Bangladesh, with support from PENKUP Research Institute. It is available open access via doi.org/10.55640/jsshrf-06-02-02.

You can also check it out here:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/400574004_Pedagogical_Disruption_and_Lecturer_Preparedness_During_Emergency_Online_Teaching_Evidence_from_Sri_Lankan_Higher_Education