COVID-19: Nigerian students expresses mixed feelings over virtual lectures

*Says, lack of sufficient data, poor Internet facility affecting process

BY DOOSUUR IWAMBE

A cross section of some Nigerian university students in the Federal Capital Territory, FCT have expressed divergent views over the online classes put in place by higher institutions of learning to control the spread of the novel coronavirus disease otherwise referred to as ‘covid-19’.

Speaking during an exclusive interview with the Daily Times, some of the students identified lack of sufficient data, poor Internet facility, lack of quality phones and laptops as some of the factors affecting the online studies.

Tersoo Akper, a 400-level student of computer science department at the university of Abuja said, ‘’the internet services in this school has not been friendly at all. I wonder how many of us will pass this semester’s examination because since we resumed, we have not done anything serious.

‘’Aside the internet services, it’s not all the students that have good tools such as phones and laptops to adopt to the new normal. I suggest the school should devise another means of learning because the online system is definitely not an option for a big university like this’’, Akper said,

Another 200-level student of Biochemistry, Damien Nnochiri wondered how the university intends to conduct online classes for its practical courses, adding that performance of students would drop with the new teaching approach.

“I don’t know how they expect us to take practical courses online. Most lecturers may not even take us in these virtual classes; they would just ask us to read up materials online”.

At the Veritas University, the catholic university of Nigeria, Bwari, Abuja, the story was not different as students lamented that the virtual learning was very challenging and difficult due to poor Internet facilities.

The students explained that the telecommunications networks did not cover many areas within the campus.

“Online teaching is quite challenging, in terms of poor Internet reception and coverage by facilities’’ said Miss Cynthia Emmanuel.

Meanwhile, some students from the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) said, the system was not very new to them as they were partially putting it into practice before the outbreak of covid-19.

Some added that they were patronizing a particular network service that was very effective.

Reacting to the development and how some of the concerns can be addressed, a telecommunication expert, Mr Ayodele Afolabi said, authorities of public university in Nigeria lack the political will in the deployment of e -learning in Nigeria.

According to him, how can the country boast of huge bandwidth capacity to the tune of 40 terabytes, yet institutions are not served adequately well because of bottlenecks.

He said until there is political will to help operators take the bandwidth from the shores of the country to cities and hinterland, having a robust online lecture will be a mirage.

“Due to very high primary cost of infrastructural development and to increase public access to internet and other ICTs, the developing countries are still far behind from getting benefit from the e-learning,” he stated.