COVID-19 and virtual learning

By Abdullah Abdulganiy

SIR: One critical sector that has been affected by the outbreak of coronavirus is the educational sector.

While many private institutions of higher learning are exploiting technology in making up for the vacuum created by school closure, public-owned institutions’ students are left with no alternative to cushion the effect of the present reality – no thanks to the ASUU-federal government tango.

But even at that, the question that has been on the lips of many Nigerians is: Is virtual learning feasible at this time?

While the challenges associated with virtual learning among primary and secondary school students could be surmounted to an extent at the moment, those of the tertiary institution may not be easy to overcome due to a number of factors.

At the centre of it all is the complex nature of higher institutions. Many schools offer more than 50 courses with hundreds of thousands of students.

In any case, how many students have smart devices to facilitate the session? How many lecturers and students can navigate these social media networks?

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How many of them can foot the bill for subscription? How about the big one: power supply given that some communities have been in total blackout for months, some others, years while most experience epileptic power supply?

These are the concerns and I don’t think there is any political will at the moment to tackle them.

Will a hungry student whose parents’ occupation have been badly hit by the lockdown order be able to foot the bill for subscriptions to partake in online learning? Will a student living in a community experiencing epileptic power supply not miss so many classes? Will a student without a smart phone be able to join any online class?

The hard fact is that many people would be left out because a sizeable number of students fall into the category. And a very important principle in learning is that no one must be left out. These challenges will surely leave some students out.

This therefore brings me to the conclusion: Nigerian public institutions are simply not ready for virtual learning. Should the coronavirus pandemic persist, a year or two will have to waste without progress in the educational sector.

Moving forward, stakeholders may need to sit down and chart the course for the effective working of virtual learning in Nigeria if we are serious as a country. It is one of the lessons Covid-19 has taught us.

• Abdullah Abdulganiy, Sokoto.