COVID-19 Pandemic and Strategizing the Higher Education Policies of Public Universities of Ethiopia

The purpose of the research is to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on higher education policies and their effect on students' academic performance at public universities in Ethiopia. The study adopts a quantitative approach followed by causal analysis by applying structural equation modeling. A sample of 384 has been selected through simple random sampling out of a large population of academic staff spread homogeneously across Ethiopia. The study variables are COVID-19, higher education policies, digital learning, teacher preparedness, and student academic performance. The findings reveal that the hypothesized model becomes a perfect fit. Based on the standardized coefficient, the most influencing path is the effect of higher education policy on digital learning, followed by the impact of COVID-19 on higher education policy, academic performance, and teacher preparedness, respectively. The study has further observed the partial effect of teacher preparedness on the students' academic performance.