Video Conferencing: Nigeria’s eLearning Experimentation

For most educational institution in Nigeria, eLearning had been only an option rather than mandatory until the end of 2019. E-learning never was compulsory and some schools try to combine classroom learning alongside eLearning, whereas other schools across the country, of which majority were yet to introduce digital tutorial as an only option, as it is presently. 

That is how it has been until the index case of corona virus made its novel entry into Nigeria in March of 2020. The impact of the pandemic has since then been devastating, to say the least. A report by IMF shows that the COVID-19 pandemic affected the global economic to the tone of $10 trillion. According to World Health Organization (WHO) loses during the pandemic is comparable only to those witnessed during the Second World War.

Crises in the Education Sector

The educational sector, like most others, have experienced unprecedented economic down turn since then. The sudden need for transformation in the education delivery system caught many unaware, including the regulatory authorities and stakeholders alike. The impact of COVID-19 in the education sector in Nigeria is immeasurable, especially, when considering the large population of about 200 million inhabitants. Indeed, that makes the country the largest concentration of black people anywhere in the world. Inadvertently, that also makes her the largest market in the African continent.

By the virtue of her large population, the country is not only a veritable market force, but also in reckoning, one of the countries in Africa with the largest Internet user’s penetration. Statista, a leading Internet research company, in its 2020 Internet Penetration Report, shows that about 100 million Nigerians use the Internet daily and that, the numbers will increase to 131.7 million in 2023.

More importantly, over 87 million Nigerians access the Internet daily, through their mobile devices, which shows that the country has an equally growing mobile penetration rate. Going by these numbers, more Nigerians use mobile phones to access the Internet than laptop and desktop computer combined, by a wide margin.

These are quite impressive statistics. Regardless of this astronomical growth in population, increase in Internet and mobile penetration, one would only assume that with such high numbers, the country would record an equally high number of users of video conferencing applications, especially in the education sector, but that was not the case, rather the use of video conferencing applications remained quite low.

Clearly, the astronomical growth in user penetration had little impact on digitalization of the education sector. The use of video was limited mainly to video calls on platforms such as Skype, WhatsApp, FaceTime, and Facebook Messenger, particularly, by individuals. A small number of B2B video chats also occur on these sites. Only a few multi-national corporations used video conferencing application then, and mostly for training of their employees.

By the very essence of the country’s Internet user index, it was only imaginable that it would make her a leader in the continent in the global digitalization and smart city project. The COVID-19 pandemic changed all of that, and brought about a sudden reawakening that compelled all the sectors of the economy to introduce digital solutions in their operations, and the education sector is a major part of that change process. During the period of lock down, most businesses such as entertainment centers, retailing outlets, sporting and game events, schools and worship centers remained closed.

Educational institutions remain one of the most hit by the lock down and up until date, most governments around the world including Nigeria are cautious to reopen schools, leaving them with little or no option, rather than to start online classes. In the past few months, the education sector has undergone a complete transformation of its learning and teaching processes.

For many of these schools to remain in business, they have to retrench some of their staff, keeping only the essential workers who are involved in taking online classes. Even for those who retained their employment, their salaries are now only a fraction of what they usually earn, and for those schools that cannot meet up, had to stay closed.

The introduction of eLearning in schools have substantially helped to reduce their operational cost. The staff strength of most educational institutions have dropped, energy consumption has led to a reduction of electricity bills. Accommodation and transportation for students eliminated. Despite all of these savings, schools in the country have continued to demand from students, full tuition and accommodation fees. Some go as far as demanding for Internet and development levies when the students are still at home. The entire education systems in the country is one big and confusing puzzle.

The Challenges of Online Classes

Online classes are the only way schools can deliver lessons to their learners. Whereas some schools use podcast, most others rely on video conferencing software or both for their online classes. The experiences from learners, especially in the case of children in primary and secondary schools, is not encouraging, to say the least.

Both students and parents face many challenges during online classes, and these range from high cost of computers and mobile devices, expensive Internet data service, poor network signal, irregular power supply. Including poor computer skills, lack of training of eLearning instructors and absence of government policies and guidelines.

Nevertheless, before we talk about the challenges and to enable us appreciate the enormity of the challenges a large number of families face, especially, little children, let us remind ourselves of the situation in the country. Nigeria is a third world and an under-developed country. Home to about 82 percent of illiteracy population, with unemployment rate that is as high as 42% as at mid-year of 2020. The national minimum monthly earning pegged by government is 30,000 Naira (just a paltry $68).

All of which has earned us a plague of shame as the poverty capital of the world, according to IMF 2019 Poverty Index. Families that live below United Nations power line constitute a larger proportion of the population of the country, which further emphasizes the difficulties families face to send their wards to school and why there is an urgent need for government to intervene as our children start online classes.

1.  High Cost Computer and Mobile Devices:

Many of the children attending these online classes have never set their hands on a computer or a smartphone, because the average price of a laptop is 120,000 Naira, while an entry-level smart phone goes for about 35,000 Naira. If the IMF poverty index of the country is anything to go by, as many as 164 million people who are in the lower rung of the employment ladder or are unemployed cannot afford a computer or a smart phone.

Lack of access to computers and mobile devices causes a large population of children, mostly those in public schools, whose parents fall within the poverty bracket, to miss the opportunity to participate in online classes, and therefore, denied education.

2.  Expensive Internet Data Service:

An average period a child attends classes is three times a week, spending between four to six hours daily. The an average amount spent on data per student daily to take online classes is about 4,000 Naira, which amounts to 48,000 Naira for 12 days, which is a month. That already exceeds the national minimum wage for most unskilled workers in the country. Majority of families, including some middle class families, cannot sustain such high cost of data to enable their children attend online classes.

3.  Poor Network Signal:

Online sessions often last for several hours, depending on the age of the child; thereby learners are required to remain online throughout the duration of the classes. It is a common occurrence to find situations whereby signal fluctuates and the device disconnects from the Internet, while online classes are still in session.

Intermittently, data service providers experience disruption on their networks, which regularly disrupts online sessions and jeopardize the entire eLearning process. The process of reconnecting to the eLearning platform comes with its own challenges that is capable of discouraging children from attending online classes.

4.  Irregular Power Supply:

Inadequate power supply has been an issue in the country, which has lingered for decades, and successive governments have been unable to resolve the power shortage despite efforts to address it. The erratic nature of power supply in the country is a major impediment to online classes, particularly, when such power outages constantly disrupts the online sessions or makes it impossible for these children to participate in these lessons when they are unable to charge their computers and mobile devices.

A large number of families, mostly the wealthy, and sometimes the middle class families as well, have to rely on alternative energy sources such as power generators, to ensure that these online sessions do not experience any disruption. Providing alternative energy often comes at a very high price, especially, when these sessions run for several hours within the day and throughout the week.

5.  Poor Computer Skills:

The absence of basic computer knowledge among students poses a major hindrance in the handling of these devices. It is quite important that they understand the basic functions and operations of the computer systems and mobile devices. Having such a knowledge could significantly reduce the difficulties experienced by many these learners, especially children, some of whom are unable to navigate the Windows features.

Sometimes, it becomes daunting for learners to log in to the video conferencing applications, because they had no prior instruction or guided tour on how to use the software. Equally, very few parent are able to provide the required support to their siblings during online sessions, while many others simply do not have sufficient knowledge about computers to be of any help to their child when they experience any technical issues.

Situations such as these could be frustrating to students and result in the abandonment of their online sessions. Exposure of these children to computer lessons and use of smartphone devices and their applications prior to taking online classes, is become an essential part of their eLearning process.

6.  Training of eLearning Instructors:

It is quite understandable that the entire online classes experience caught many educational institutions by surprise. The apparent lack of preparedness by schools is nothing surprising, but what is, is the fact that most of these schools never considered training their instructors on the use of the video conferencing applications before introducing online classes. They simply just gatecrashed, adding to the difficulties of the entire eLearning process.

These instructors never even prepare their tutorials, podcast or video lessons before rushing to invite students for online meeting and in many cases, even hurriedly scheduling examinations that turn out a disaster. Most of the challenges learners experience during online classes have come from instructors who know nothing or so little of the functions of the video conferencing applications they use.

7.  Lack of Government Policy:

There is a clear lack of government policy and guidelines on the conduct of online classes for both private and public educational institutions. All education boards in the various States of the federal and the school management authorities must introduce strict standards, guidelines and procedures for schools to follow in the delivery of online courses in schools.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the resultant lock downs and mandatory social distancing imposed by government made it compulsory for schools to start online classes without any preparation or regulation by the government that enforces enforce standardization in the education sector. The massive void created by the absence of government policies led schools to deliver online lessons to their students under extremely poor and uncoordinated circumstances.

Conclusion

The experiences from various stakeholders about online classes, especially the use of video conferencing applications by schools, revealed many issues, and society must find solutions to these hindrances if sincerely, we want to get the best out of our children. Online school is a welcome alternative, if not made compulsory at the onset for a number of reasons.

Firstly, both the government and the private sector must collaborate to find a solution to the high cost of computers and mobile devices. Government has a crucial role to play, to make these devices affordable by introducing policy initiatives that will drive private investment in the manufacturing sector to invest in the production of affordable devices and/or encourage bulk importation of computer systems and mobile devices to help drive down prices.

As it is presently, majority of the children who are from poor homes are denied access to online education, because they cannot afford a computer, buy Internet data regularly or even afford a generator to power their computers and mobile devices. In addition, these children certainly, require some basic computer training to enable them start operating a computer. Such children will lag behind in study when placed in the same environment with children from wealthy background, especially when their parents are equally inexperienced to support them with their studies online.

Secondly, network providers must demonstrate heightened corporate social responsibility engagements and partnership with various levels of governments in both the States and in federal level, to make Internet data service affordable, especially to schools. Government can also offer these mobile network operators import duty incentives to bring in essential parts and components for the construction of more high-speed telecom infrastructure.

Thirdly, the issue about poor network signal rest mostly on the shoulders of the network providers. The immediate upgrade and installation of more transmitting stations will help to improve their services. Nigeria Communications Commission, which is the regulatory agency, must enforce the minimum operating standards to ensure that users enjoy value service for their money.

In addition, the issue of irregular power supply is another major challenge that requires much attention. Enough is not been done presently to address the lingering power shortage. Government should ensure that the regulatory authority in the power sector rise up to their responsibility by ensuring that operators in the power sector follow strict guidelines and increase the quality of their services.

Another vital area that needs urgent attention is the aspect of poor computer skills by children, mostly those in public primary and secondary schools. Learners need to have pre-class IT lessons to prepare them to commence online classes. Such training sessions will reduce the difficulties experienced by these learners during online sessions.

We must equally address of schools not providing good quality educational materials, such as videos, podcasts and PowerPoint presentations to students, which they can access for self-paced learning when they are offline. While online education has become a necessary requirement for primary, secondary and tertiary education in the present dispensations, there is need for its introduction in phases to create sufficient time for all the stakeholders to put adequate measures in place before it becomes compulsory.

The management of these educational institutions must also ensure that their instructors receive the required video conferencing applications training, which prepares them to facilitate online classes. The training of teachers to develop course materials such as podcast, PowerPoint shows and video tutorials will greatly help to improve the quality of their delivery of online courses.

Last but not the least, the Ministry of Education, which is the regulator of the education sector, does not yet understand its new role, leaving schools to run online programmes without the necessary policies and guidelines to regulate them. Irrespective, the foundation upon which the success of online course rest is the availability of relevant guidelines and policies. Policy formulation and standardization are ways government can help support the regulatory authorities, so that they can ensure that schools meet strict standards and deliver quality education to their students.