The COVID-19 pandemic lockdown period was typically a time when all human activity was halted. The educational system in Nigeria is not free from this. To mitigate the effect of COVID-19 on education, several educational institutions made the decision to use e-learning for the first time. Only a few public institutions were able to join the system, whereas some private institutions were able to do so on time. Therefore, the goal of this study is to assess the success or failure of online learning at public universities in Ekiti state during the shutdown. Because it would enable the researchers to collect pertinent data from a huge study sample without any alteration, the study used a descriptive survey research methodology. All of the final-year students from the two Ekiti State universities made up the population. The sample for the study consisted of one hundred twenty (120) final-year scientific students from the two universities’ faculties of sciences. A 4-point Likert scale structured questionnaire was the tool used to collect data from respondents. The study was directed by three research questions and two research hypotheses in total. The frequency counts and mean scores were used to analyze the research questions while the research hypotheses were analyzed using paired – t-test and One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20. Each hypothesis was tested at the 0.05 threshold.  The findings demonstrated that online learning is more enjoyable than conventional face-to-face learning, making it an excellent platform for teaching and understanding scientific concepts. Online learning also improves students’ academic performance in terms of motivation, learning achievement, and learning engagement. Budgetary issues and slow internet, however, make it difficult for people to learn online.  In order to preserve the progress gained during the lockdown after COVID-19, it was recommended that educational stakeholders should increase the accessibility of online learning facilities in schools at all levels of education.

Keywords: Online Learning, COVID – 19 Pandemic, Tertiary Institutions, Effectiveness, Challenges,

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