Assessing Covid-19 pandemic-forced transitioning to distance e-learning in Moroccan universities: an empirical, analytical critical study of implementality and achievability

This paper surveys and analyses the distance e-learning (DeL, henceforth) experience in Moroccan universities during the Covid-19 quarantine from the perspective of students in order to investigate the reality of things as achievements, failures, and possible opportunities. The nationwide lockdown, motivated by an awareness of the human cost the spread of Coronavirus may cause, has forced Moroccan public and private universities to shift from classroom physicality to web virtuality. This online transition, imposed amidst a shortage of equipments and staff undertraining, is hypothesised to engender undesired learning outputs worthy of analytical and critical evaluation. 274 students were therefore surveyed to collect and analyse their perceptions, reactions, and attitudes towards the Covid-19 prompted Moroccan DeL experience. This hypothesis proved arguably tenable because much of the data collected testified to an insufficient online teaching/learning achievability generated mostly by low web accessibility/affordability, DeL undertraining, and low distance education engagement.