Nigeria education sector is seriously affected by the spread of covid-19. In the wake of the spread in some states in the country, schools were ordered by the government for closure, disrupting the session circle. Till the time of writing this report, schools across the country are still closed as cases continue to rise.
The Federal Government’s Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 while announcing new measures and protocols for relaxing the lockdown in the phase two, pointed out that in spite the opening of private businesses and religious centres, schools at all levels would remain closed.
With the continued daily rise in the reported cases schools across the country might remain closed for a long period.
Meanwhile the Minister of State for Education, Emeka Nwajiuba said the ministry was studying the time-table to know when it would be convenient as soon as there was ease on inter-state lockdown.
To technology experts, the Covid-19 lockdown is a perfect opportunity for government to introduce e-learning into the education system. For the Adesina Sodiya, the President of the Nigeria Computer Society, e-learning systems should be gradually introduced as students ascend the intellectual ladder from the primary level to the tertiary as this was regarded as blended learning.
He said there should be legislations that will enforce electronic learning in academic institutions, saying it has become crucial to quality of education in the country.
For Sodiya, “The establishments of e-learning centres across the nation must be accredited based on certain requirements.
“The e-learning materials must be scientifically peer-reviewed in the standard required for a publication in a scientific journal.
“Criteria for the review must include the assessment whether the material recognises and meets the needs of hematologists and their patients.”
He believes that e-learning could accelerate the number of educated people as not everyone had been able to afford the cost of enrolling for a degree or certification.
Sodiya is however concerned that the country was still lagging in the area of ICT infrastructure and access to the Internet.
He highlighted other impediments to e-learning as inadequate funding, poverty, low knowledge of learning content creation, development and management as well as poor electricity.
The NCS president said, “E-learning in Nigeria however is still a dream because of poor ICT infrastructure and other socio-economic reasons.
“Due to the very high primary cost of infrastructural development and to increase public access to the Internet and other ICTs, the nation is still far behind from getting benefits from the e-learning system.
According to him, institutions, organisations and individuals may have suffered from limited resources and awareness, inadequate manpower and training, instability in energy, and poor Internet and network facilities in their bid to exploit complete utilisation of e-learning facilities.
Sodiya noted that it was important to provide an enabling environment for e-learning systems in order to successfully adopt e-learning in Nigeria.
