By:Dauda Mistura
With the emergence of COVID-19 pandemic and most parts of the world in lockdown, the pandemic affected every aspect of human life. It has taken lives, jobs and even robbed us of entertainment, even face masks became the norm and Nigeria was not left out. There have been different measures put in place to control the spread of the disease.
On Monday, 30 March, 2020, the Federal Government announced a total lockdown with the effects seen in all aspects of the country from economy to agriculture down to entertainment, but the educational system had to deal with the largest blow.
Nigerian universities are notorious for strike actions as students stay idle at home, the lockdown period was a sad reoccurrence of this malady that has bedeviled the Nigerian education sector. Nigeria sought to transition to online learning,like every other country in the world. But it begs the question, ARE NIGERIAN PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES CAPABLE? Expensive data rates, epileptic power supply, low standards of living and laziness on the part of the lecturers and students all posed to be obstacles for online learning in Nigeria.
Despite these challenges, most schools went ahead to conduct online classes and some students decided to share their experience.
Lara, a first year student of Lagos State University narrated her experience, “students were asked to log into Envivo (an app used for online classes).
The app was not functional and most students were unable to login. Eventually it was abandoned, and we went back to lecturers dropping PDF on WhatsApp, some students attended zoom classes for a while and nothing further than that”
For some, it was a good experience. Jalalat, a student of Al Hikmah, a private University in Kwara State said, "It was good, we made use of WhatsApp, Google Classroom for lecturers sometimes zoom, but it was rarely used because of it high data consumption”. She also added that they were also able to conduct tests and exams and successfully conducted a semester online.
Shukroh, a student of University of Osun narrated a similar experience, In her words, ”It was hectic. Firstly, when they introduced the virtual class we thought they can't be serious until they gave us email to log in to Google classroom". She also added that, "There was issue of data because the app consumed a lot of data, I later got Spectranet which is very expensive. Further explaining her experience, She said, "Fortunately, class was going smoothly and we were given assignments. Unfortunately we couldn't conduct exams and test because the portal crashed on the first day. So we had to do it physically following COVID-19 guidelines”
However some had it worse. Sanusi, a third year student of University of Lagos, after spending over six months at home due to the lockdown and ASUU strike felt a bit apprehensive towards online learning. He said, "actually, at first it was mixed feeling, happy at first that they might work on their side for conducive learning. Nervous of anything going bad. To be fair, it started well. Some lecturers used Zoom for classes and some dropped PDF via WhatsApp. But as it is now, it is a pure disaster. Five minutes for theory test and fifteen minutes for thirty questions on a very bad website that takes up to two minutes to load for every question.
There are also wrong answers on the system. I feel stressed thinking if my effort will pay with wrong answers already on the system. And when they claim to rectify it they will give the test with lesser time which doesn't change anything.”
This is the current state of online learning in Nigeria told from different perspectives, good enough for some but mostly disastrous for others especially when it comes to tests and exams, this is definitely affecting students and will leave a lasting impact on their future.
There is a need for Nigerian varsities to broaden their horizon outside physical classroom and a lot of help needs to come from both Federal and States Ministries of Education in ensuring it happens.
The future of education is E-learning and Nigerian schools could definitely get better at it. After all, we are the "Giant of Africa".
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