The Injustice of Online Lectures -By Efosa Taiwo

That the Corona Virus pandemic sprung up cannot be faulted on anyone, to a large extent. As such, measures that ensure we fight off the pandemic with our lives unaltered are quite essential to be put in place. It tends to be worrisome, however, when in the quest for normalcy, when in the quest for improvisation, majority of people in a system gets to be shut out of that same system, unfairly. 

There is no doubt that the introduction of online lectures to help vitiate the effect of the shutdown of schools nationwide following the pandemic outbreak was a welcome concept. But just because something looks good on paper, does not restrict it from turning hideous in practice.

Hitherto, in the country, conventionally, lectures were always done physically. That was what most students in the country signed up for with their respective institutions, and to a large extent, that is what most students who started off their education in the country are familiar with. Introducing something different from what they are accustomed to and what they never agreed to in the first place, calls for a meticulous, strategic yet fair implementation process.
The introduction of online lectures across tertiary institutions in the country is one that would demand that students purchase data to be present online. It is one that demands ‘good’ electricty supply for students to have their devices charged in order to be present online for the lectures. It is one that demands that students get to purchase the compatible and suitable devices where the platforms for the online lectures do function in. 

So, with more than three weeks that the online lecture has been on across some schools in the country, I carried out a survey to find out how effective this mode of lecture has been across schools that have commenced it, and there were more of negative turnouts than positive ones, unsurprisingly. Students across the institutions seemed to have more knocks than kudos to give to this mode of lecture. 
A student in one of the institutions told me this,” I’m totally pissed off and devasted. I understand that in a situation like this, we all need to improvise, which is a better thing. But what are those things that are put into places ?

“We are yet to eat in our house and you ask me to come online.? I’m still owing Glo 200 and MTN 300, I don’t even know when to pay.

“There’s this form that we all fill during registration, at the back of it, our numbers were provided there. Was there any SMS sent to each students that there’d be something like this? Was there any prior notification ?

“No stable electricity, no work to even get data to be online.  How would you know, if I am comfortable for the time fixed. Moreso, some students are not virtual learners.

“You can’t judge base on majority, consider other students, the access to a browsing phone, menace and economy that would make us purchase data. It’s when you have resources that you can implement an idea. You can’t just wake up and say, ehn, we’d be having our lectures on telegram.”

Meanwhile, statistics derived from the attendance of such mode of lecture across tertiary institutions placed it on a low scale of less than 20%. 

Speaking to a student on whether she has been able to comprehend anything so far from the online lectures she has been attending, she said, “Physics and Chemistry courses that are based more on calculations and balancing of Chemical equations respectively, we find it difficult to understand even in classes, talk more implementing an online teaching.”
Truth be told, holding online lectures is a development worth lauding. It is a development that augurs well for the country that has been lagging in this aspect before now. Many would opine that one of the blessings that comes with the pandemic is its prompting of tertiary institutions to adopt the concept of online lectures like their counterpart in other parts of the world have been doing. But for whatever content you seek to introduce, context is very germane, we seem to have forgotten that so quickly.

It is not suffice that just because your counterparts from other parts of the world are in practice of a concept, then it behooves on you to join the bandwagon. Like an Igbo proverb says, “A rat that sees a lizard dance in the rain and joins the lizard to dance in the rain should not forget that the lizard would go home dry while it would be overwhelmed with cold.”
In countries where online lectures or e-learning thrives, the system therein has been fine-tuned and dovetailed to fertilize its success. Countries in this context have a very good electricity supply, their economies are far better than that which we have in Nigeria, as such, purchasing data is not as steep as it is here. Purchasing phones compatible with online lectures comes far easier than that which we have right here. Students upon getting admission into these schools, already have a solid foreknowledge of the possibility of holding online lectures when situation demands it, as such, they get themselves prepared for it. 

But in a country like Nigeria, where basic amenities like power supply, roads, water supply are far out of the reach of the people and only exclusive to the elites in the society, it is an anomaly to expect success from online lectures in public institutions where majority of their students are not from the elites in the society. It is just impossible to have such mode of lecture become effective in this part of the world. 

This is not because it cannot get effective, but for now, we don’t have what it takes and have not put together what it takes to ensure that such mode of lecture thrives with virtually everyone in the system benefitting from it.

Moreso, aside from the fact that we lack basic amenities to have such idea thrive upon, I am submitting that holding such mode of lecture at this point in time is very insensitive of any authority to do. 

Psychology has a role to play in the acquisition of education, and when you consider the fact that attack on one’s psychology in form of depression, anxiety, foreboding are some of the spin-offs that spring up during pandemic like the one we are plagued with, you would be compelled to align with me that the last thing anyone at this period would want is to attend lectures online. We hear of cases of deaths on the radio, the grapevines are replete of varied yet apprehensive tales concerning the pandemic, you switch on the TV, you get to be flooded with the rise in the number of cases, on Social Media everyone oozes fear as regards the pandemic. All these have their effects on one’s psychology, which in turn could make no room available for education. 

Not only that, the lockdown effected by the government to prevent the spread of the virus had evidently and statistically affected the financial strength of most families in the country. This inevitably spiralled down to the frequency and quantity of food consumption in most homes as we have seen. You don’t expect a student who has not eaten for a long time to read two pages of a book let alone attend an online lecture that would span for more than an hour. How would the knowledge being passed across stick? How would such student be able to concentrate when the contingents of worms  rumbling for food in his stomach keeps gnawing? Or has the authorities suddenly forgotten that an hungry man is not a normal man?

If only authorities had been more considerate. If only authorities had taken a look at things from a broader perspective, factoring in the bottlenecks that would halt successful implementation. If only authorities had taken time out to prioritize context over content. If only authorities had for a moment stopped being glory-seeking but student-seeking, maybe the injustice that is being meted out to students who don’t have money to buy phones, who don’t have money to buy data, who have not eaten for a long time, who have been psychologically distorted and who have not seen electricity in two months of staying at home, maybe the injustice would not have been. Maybe the students would have had their rights to an all-inclusive education, protected. Just maybe.