2020

The past few years have been very challenging to normal operations in essentially all sectors, including education. The Covid-19 lockdown initiated in 2020 was a shock to most of us, but also we found some useful free time on our hands in the first few months. Naturally education suffered a heavy blow with no direct contact between teachers a students.  Chemistry is a subject where practical work is key to training chemists and showcasing science. The students missed out on both the practical work as well as the direct personal contact with lecturers technicians and fellow aspiring chemists. By 2021 we had a feel for online education but experience was lacking and many teaching lessons were learned, often by trial and error. Community engagements based on direct contact had typically ground to a halt from the beginning of the lockdown. Schools seemed to fare a lot better than tertiary education where lecturer-parents would drop masked children at school and either head home or to the office and teach through screens. Around mid 2021 intrepid staff managed to run some practicals and theory classes under rather stringent and restrictive lockdown conditions which increased administrative load.  As we now transition through the early weeks of 2023 we have emerged from the lockdown along with a wake of infrastructural challenges but we hope be able to get back to more or less normal operations this year.