WHY I WILL SUPPORT THE GOVERNMENT TO ENDORSE E-LEARNING FOR TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS TO CONTINUE THEIR ACADEMIC PROGRAMMES BY MASTERPIECE DAVID OLAWADE

My younger sister told me yesterday about the proposed plans of some universities to continue their academic calendar online through Telegraph. She desired my take on such modality having heard quite a number of undergraduates complaining that it can't be effective because many students can't afford internet data for such.

I was so happy that she could desire my take on the matter as she is always aware that I don't condone idleness and I will always frown at irresponsibility. I told her many students saying internet data would be a problem are only using that as I excuse and have their priority misplaced in a season like this.

How can a student that uploads videos using "Tik Tok or Thriller" app not minding the ads to do "pop daddy and mummy, don't rush" challenge not have data to follow a lecture on telegraph?

How can students that have been doing boredom challenge online and spends an average of 10 hours actively online daily not be able to spare three hours on telegraph to attend two lectures daily or download the audios of the classes later?

It's only a Nigeria student that can upload pictures of at least 3 MB on social media but finds it difficult to download PDF lecture materials of over 1 MB shared on the class WhatsApp page because he or she is trying to save data.

I concluded another 7-Day midnight reading challenge with some folks this morning and I was surprised to see an undergraduate student on the group page that was studying his academic materials with past exam question papers over the nights as he shared the pictures. Some students like the guy are busy studying what Davido and Chioma are doing on Instagram, yet they won't have data for e-learning.

I spoke to a final year undergraduate recently and I asked him how he was going with his research project. I was disappointed to hear him tell me the project was on hold because of COVID-19 as I was struggling to believe if his brain was on shutdown and downloading materials online won't be possible.

A proactive student would progress against all odds and reach his supervisor via mails to review his work since his supervisor is also having the whole day to himself at home. I told a friend from experience recently that this is the best time to write and publish academic papers since all reviewers over the world are working from home and have time as they would engage prompt response on documents sent to them.

If Nigeria universities can come up with e-learning for undergraduates at home, it would curtail a lot of things such as infodemic, idleness, boredom and so on.

I feel the minister of Education could look into this but the challenge is; ASUU recently gave him a notice on a proposed strike over federal government's failure to fulfill their promises to the association. I'm hoping that the federal government would do the necessary to this regard so that undergraduates won't still remain at home after the COVID-19 pandemic.

I would also suggest undergraduate students should start writing their matric numbers, course of study, name of hostel and so on somewhere so that they won't forget after COVID-19 since they are agitating that they don't want e-learning in a time like this.