he coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is rated as one of the defining global health crises of our time and the deadliest post-second war challenge ravaging the world. By the end of March 2020, the pandemic that started in China 2019 has spread to every continent with the exception of Antarctica (Samsujjaman, 2021). As of 25 th May, 2020, the pandemic that penetrated the continent of Africa has affected Nigeria so much that 7,839 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 226 related deaths were reported (WHO 25/05/2020 cited in ACAPS, 2020). Most covid-19 instance (around 60%) have been registered in Lagos and Kano states, followed by the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). 35 of 37 states reported COVID-19 cases, including conflict-affected states of Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe (ACAPS, 2020). The latest update as of February/25/2021, shows Nigeria coronavirus cases is 153,842, deaths 1,885, recovered 130,818, and testing capacity on the increase (www.worldometers.info accessed 25/February/2021).

In March/2020 Nigeria's Federal and State authorities joined their counterparts in another part of the globe to impose various restrictions of movement in an effort to curb the COVID-19 outbreak. These restrictions include a ban on social gathering and interstate travel, night curfews, mandatory use of masks in public, and a complete lockdown instructing businesses to close and people to stay in a restricted location (Protection Cluster and UNHCR, 2020).

The report shows that Kaduna State as one of the largest states in the northern region, with a total population of 10 million citizens, recorded 1,457 confirmed cases and 21 deaths of COVID-19 as of 31 st July, 2020 (Nigerian Centre for Disease Control 2020). In line with the national guidance, Kaduna State activated the COVID-19 Emergency Operating Centre (EOC) to confirm a case and to coordinate the response. The EOC developed an Incident Action Plan (IAP) with nine strategic pillars, including coordination, surveillance, and epidemiology, Infection Prevention and Control (IPC), case management, risk communication, logistics and supplies, laboratory, the point of entry, and research (United Nations Relief Works Agency, 2020). The Kaduna state-government enforced total lockdown for 75 days beginning from March/2020 to stem the rise in COVID-19 and prevent community transmission (The Lancet, 2020) and lockdown of all public and private academic institutions (Primary and secondary schools, Polytechnics, Colleges of Education, Universities, etc.) during the second wave from December 2020 to February 2021. Federal College of Education, Zaria, located in the Kaduna, was affected by the closure.

Despite this imposition of long and short-term periods of lockdown in a bid to contain the spread of COVID 19, the pandemic and restriction measures have a significant impact on the population's well-being, psychological, socioeconomic, and living conditions. Every sector of human existence is affected, leading to collapse of the world economy, loss of lives and jobs. The education sector is one of the worst-affected sectors. The reason for this impact on the education sector is because all academic institutions were closed. Statistics from UNESCO show that the COVID 19 pandemic has led to the closure of schools in 188 countries, affecting more than 1.5 billion students and 63 million primary and secondary teachers worldwide (Samsujjaman, 2021). The need to assess the impact of covid-19 lockdown/movement restriction on teaching and learning becomes imperative.

Teaching, and Learning

Koh, (2020) defines lockdown as an essential measure in controlling COVID-19 transmission, especially in larger cities where social and physical distancing is very difficult to maintain. Lockdown is a compulsory restriction of movement except for those on essential duties by the government or organized private sector. It is a large-scale physical distancing measure and movement restriction that has the potency of limiting contact between people and slowing the rate of covid-19 (World Health Organization, 2020). A widely used concept, it generally refers to government-adopted strategy and stringent restrictions on movement, social gathering, and all activities that enhance physical contact of people to slow the spread of Covid-19.

The concept of teaching, according to Sequeira (2017), is a set of event outside the learners that are designed to support the entire process of learning. The preceding definition shows that learning is holistic to the learners. Theories of learning view teaching and learning as active, constructive and cooperative process. Individuals attempt to access new information by interpreting it, questioning its meaning, exploring its uses to bring about the development of new skills and change of attitude (Wilson & Peterson, 2006). These perspectives place teaching and learning as social interactions, such as conversations, discussions, teamwork, and debate, in influencing classroom learning, otherwise known as students' centered approach. Such interactions provide opportunities for students to participate in classroom discussions, work together in small-group settings to solve complex problems, learn through observing the performance of others, receiving feedback about their individual and group performance, hearing alternative points of view, engaging in the exchange of ideas and intellectual discourse (Wilson & Peterson, 2006).

Under the covid-19 lockdown, academic institutions were closed, Students' admission was postponed, teaching and learning in an active and participatory class environment truncated, social interaction amongst teachers and students vanished and, the education sector was negatively affected. Accessing the impact of the lockdown on teaching and learning in the Federal College of Education Zaria is the major objective of this study.

This paper is situated within the assumptions of the Linkage theory as popularized by Joseph Frankel (1973) in his book "International theory and Behaviour of States." The theory draws a lot of inference from David Easton"s input and output analysis projected in the systems theory (Adelusi, 2019). According to Rosenau (1969), linkage denotes "any recurrent sequence of behavior that originates in one system and is reacted to in another." This behavior has initial and the terminal stages of linkage known as "inputs" and "outputs" as contained in system theory (Adelusi, 2019). The Input and output are linked together by three major types of linkages namely, the Penetrative, the Reactive and, the Emulative. Penetrative Linkage is one in which one polity serves as a participant in the political processes and shares the authority to allocate values within the penetrated units (Adelusi, 2019). This category embraces all sectors of the society such as political, economic, education, social, and security economic penetration that contribute immensely to every political processes of a sovereign state. The Reactive linkage is what is caused by boundary-crossing reactions without direct foreign participation in the decisions made within the unit. The last linkage is Emulative. This is where the response taken in one country to address a situation is essentially the same in another part of the world (Adelusi, 2019).

This theory is critical in explaining the current coronavirus pandemic and its attendant impact on Nigeria's educational system. Within the confine of the theory, coronavirus (covid-19) is a disease that is not indigenous and has penetrated (penetration linkage) into the country with a myriad of negative impact on certain sectors of the economy. The penetration of covid-19 has generated diverse forms of reaction (reactive Linkage) in the form of border closures, restriction of movements within the country, shutting of institutions, and introduction of new social norms similar to what we have seen in other countries of the world. The penetration and its corresponding reactions have ravaged the world and instituting new world order and systemic paradigm shift because the global system has become integrated and knitted together due to technological advancement. As a result of the interconnectedness of the world, there is usually a resultant impact of what is happening in other countries on internal structures of another. Nigeria's attempt at handling the virus through lockdown, social distancing, compulsory wearing of facemask and other established protocols are in many ways similar (emulative linkage) to that of many countries around the globe. These three linkages help to situate this study within an empirical discourse.

A descriptive survey design was adopted for this study involving quantitative instrument to collect data from participants. This is because descriptive survey design presents quantitative descriptions in a manageable form. The population of the study consisted of the academic staff, non-teaching staff, and students of Federal College of Education, Zaria. Random sampling was used to select 51 academic staff, 25 non-academic staff and, 44 students which give us a total of 120 respondents. 120 questionnaires were distributed, returned and, found valid for analysis. The questionnaires were completely retrieved because the researchers carefully distributed the questionnaires on personal contact and collected them back after respondents made responses. The questionnaire used was self-structured and by the researchers tagged "Covid-19 Lockdown, Teaching, and Learning in FCE Zaria" (C-19LTL-FCE-Zaria). To ensure that the instrument was validated, a wide range of experts in teaching profession were consulted. Data collected were analyzed using quantitative descriptive statistics tools of mean and standard deviation. The descriptive values were presented in tables and, the hypothetical statement was tested using regression analysis tests of significance as a tool for a parametric test. The hypothetical result was used to identify whether the opinions of the respondents was significant or insignificant in assessing the impact of the predictive variables on the outcome variable. The mean scale was placed at 2.50.

V. Table 1 above shows the designation of the respondents. Out of the 120 questionnaires distributed, retrieved and, analyzed, academic staffers were 51 (42.5%), Non-academic staffers were 25 (20.8%) and, students were 44 (36.7%). These categories of people are critical in academic institutions; hence their responses suitable for an empirical conclusion. Table 4 presents the result of analysis on measures to mitigate the negative impact of Covid-19 lockdown on teaching and learning in Federal College of Education, Zaria. The mean distributions of all variables were above the scale mean of 2.50 except resumption of students in batches that has the mean of 2.26. The small standard deviation of all the respective variables: 0.51, 0.48, 0.54, 0.65, 0.61, 0.55, 0.53, 0.96, 0.61; indicates that they are clustered around the mean given room for positive statistical conclusions. The model table gives R (correlation) of 0.206 a strong positive linear relationship. The R 2 of 0.042 of the variance in the distortion of class progression and graduation is accounted for by a long period of covid-19 lockdown. The adjusted R 2 0.034 adjusts the fact that we are using a sample to make inferences about a population. From the above, our t value (2.284) and significant values 0.024 that is associated with the long period of covid-19 lockdown is significantly, giving us the confidence of reaching this decision that the result of the finding, supports the alternate hypothesis. Therefore, we accept it and reject the null hypothesis. A Long period of covid-19 lockdown/movement restrictions bring about the distortion of class progression and graduation.

This research work examined the impact of covid-19 lockdown/movement restriction on teaching and learning in the Federal College of Education, Zaria. FCE Zaria, as an academic institution, has three critical categories of people that are instrumental in determining her education activities, namely the academic staff, nonteaching staff, and students. In accessing the reasons for the enforcement of covid-19 lockdown/movement restrictions in Kaduna State, where FCE, Zaria is located, the study found out that the reasons include reducing further spread of the coronavirus among citizens, to stop the movement of people who are capable of spreading the virus, flatten the curve of Coronavirus in the State, make tracking of possible contact of people with covid-19 victims easier and effective, disinfect contaminated surfaces in public places, create more awareness about the deadly virus and how its spread to the general public, provide better medical facilities and testing centers and to cut down the financial burden on the limited resources of the government.

On the impact of the lockdown/movement restrictions on teaching and learning activities in FCE Zaria, the results show that the impact was enormous. It has distorted the use of school facilities, e.g., Classrooms, Libraries, Laboratories, as only a few are allowed usage; class progression, and graduation and academic calendar. What is more, it brought about the breakdown of teaching and learning materials; reduction in reading culture amongst teachers and students; broad space of passiveness and docility amongst teachers and students; the breakdown of group study and teamwork, the interpersonal relationship among students and teachers; wide gap between the different categories of learners and creating the possibility of massive failure in the examination; psychologically depression among students; rush in teaching and learning activities for fear of exposure to the virus and incurring additional cost on both teachers and students in getting Android phones, data, radio and batteries to access the e-learning platform.

Finally, on measures to mitigate the negative impact of a covid-19 lockdown/movement restrictions on teaching and learning in the country, the study found out that providing capacity building training to both teachers and students on the use of ICT for teaching and learning; promoting the use of ICT in teaching, and learning to create a conducive environment for virtual learning; developing and adopting home innovated and user-friendly applications for e-learning; disinfecting the school before students' resumption; sensitization and intensifying strict adherence to Covid-19; re-organizing lecture timetable to enhance social distancing; free provision of protective equipment for teachers and students and financial support and palliatives from the government to both students and teachers are all critical factors.

Based on the findings above, we conclude that the covid-19 outbreak has affected all sectors of the economy, including education. The lockdown/ movement restrictions that lasted for months brought about closure off all learning institutions with Federal College of Education, Zaria inclusive. The closure has impacted on teaching, and learning activities in the country, as exemplified by the sample population, which formed our unit of analysis. The hypothesis tested further confirmed that the lockdown era has truncated teaching and learning activities.

From the findings, we recommend that; i. Structures and ICT facilities be made available in all institutions of learning in the country as a means of enhancing e-learning; ii. Both teachers and students are to be trained to have the know-how of the facilities for their effective utilization; iii. Holistic sensitization and intensification of strict adherence to Covid-19 protocols made available by the government; iv. Covid-19 task force should be established in all institution of learning to enforce compliance since the resumption of students in batches is not a viable solution for them; v. Class size and lecture timetable be restructured to accommodate social distance protocol and reduce the time of exposure; vi. Disinfecting the school before students' resumption and at different intervals should be put into consideration by the government and education stakeholders; vii. Provision of protective equipment and palliatives to academic staff, non-academic staff, and students.