When the Federal Government announced a lockdown in Ogun State and interstate travel restriction to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, Adeniran’s husband, who works in Osun State, could not join the family.
Meanwhile, her children’s school had just started the second term examinations, but they couldn’t finish writing the exams at that time.
“The children feel that mummy is their friend so they have refused to be serious with the resources and the classwork I give them via the websites. They would rather play or watch cartoon than concentrate on their studies,” Adeniran told our correspondent.
Moreover, she said teaching her children when she also had deliverables from working from home was putting a strain on her mental health.
“We are hoping that schools will resume very soon and the lockdown/curfew will be lifted. But to keep the students busy during this period, we have partnered an education-technology company so that their learning will not be impaired,” the school proprietress, Mrs Peace Beckley, said.
Adeniran tried the educational portal and it seemed easy to navigate the first time.
“I have only two smart devices, my phone and laptop, the latter of which is my company’s property. I can’t use the laptop because I can’t risk it being damaged by the children. I also could not get a new smart device since the whole state was on lockdown and shops were not open,” Adeniran said while sharing her concerns.
She added, “It meant that all three of my children, Lanre, Dola and Funmbi, had to use my phone. The children were supposed to be in a virtual class for one hour each daily.
“The first three days were frustrating as we didn’t see any ongoing class on the portal and yet we were burning data. I subscribed to N10,000 data for the first three weeks using both Spectranet and MTN.”
Once there’s no public electricity supply, Adeniran has to fuel the generator for a minimum of three hours to ensure that her children participate in the online classes that she paid a total of N15,000 for a month for the three kids.
When asked if she was satisfied with the performance of her children after a month, she said the performances of her two pre-schoolers hadn’t improved as they were still learning how to write, which could not be taught online.
According to her, she did most of the teaching at home and did not see any value in the virtual classes.
The experiences of parents and students with alternative schooling models are different. Some have to contend with both poor telecom network and expensive data subscription.
Findings showed that some parents with young kids in primary school are not deriving value from the online classes.
For Mr Wale Ogundipe, who resides in Lagos State, exposure to so much screen time for his children was not what he had bargained for.
He paid N10,000 per month for each of his two kids in primary school. They connect to the school’s online portal and also communicate with teachers via WhatsApp from 9am to noon every week day.
He said, “Although I am known for trying to limit the number of hours they spend in front of the TV and tablets every day, but I can’t limit their screen time anymore because online classes are the new normal.
“I subscribe to Airtel data and sometimes MTN with about N3,000 weekly. Despite the amount I spend on data, the networks are still not stable. Sometimes, when we get disconnected for up to five minutes on one network, we are forced to switch to another network. To me, I don’t see any difference in the quality of service of the network providers.”
An Ibadan-based businesswoman, Mrs Gladys Andrew, who has two children in secondary school, finds the online classes convenient for her and the children.
According to her, John and Faith are used to learning on their own and don’t have to be monitored, while they are engaged with their teachers via Zoom.
She added that lesson notes and links to online learning materials were also sent to them via WhatsApp for further reading after classes.
“They are getting accustomed to the Zoom classes and they are finding it more interesting every day. To be sincere, we are getting value for the money we paid to the school and the network has also been reliable,” Andrew added.
She said the family spent about N7,000 on data subscription on the Globacom network in two weeks.
A Lagos-based marketing officer, Mrs Kemisola Ibiyemi, said she had to pull out of the online classes and get a private tutor for her two kids, because the stress was too much for her and the children.
Ibiyemi said when she and her husband were working from home, she still had to squeeze in time to ensure that the children sat still during online classes by staying with them.
She said there were times she had to exit the classes because her kids were not concentrating and there were other work-related obligations that needed her attention.
“At times, it is the teacher’s network that would be poor and the children wouldn’t be able to hear her clearly. On such days, the children did not learn anything,” she stated.
Ibiyemi said the whole family subscribed to data worth N15,000 monthly on the Spectranet network during the lockdown.
The National President, Parent-Teacher Association, Mr Haruna Danjuma, noted that the gap in learning was being bridged by teaching through the Internet, radio and television in order to get the students busy at home.
However, he said online classes could not deliver as much value as classroom learning.
Danjuma stated, “The lockdown has deprived our children the opportunity of attending classes. During the lockdown, our children can find a way to get out an engage in unpleasant things. However, we cannot compare online classes with the normal classes in school.
“These alternative methods of learning cannot benefit some of our students in the rural areas. They don’t have electricity or access to radio, not to talk of having computers, smartphones or Internet connectivity. The alternative classes can only reach about 50 per cent of the students in the country.
“This situation has already created a gap in learning for our children. We need to discuss the way forward with stakeholders such as the Ministry of Education, examination bodies, parents and teachers to fashion a way out.”
He stressed that there was an urgent need to ensure that students in terminal/external examination classes resumed schooling in order that they would not waste a year and forfeit their chances of gaining admission into the next class or school.
“Students are graduating from SSS3 and JSS3, and most of the students in SSS3 sat the UTME with awaiting results and some of them got good results, hoping they would proceed to higher institutions after the SSSCE. But now, they are at home,” he added.
The President, Association of Telecommunication Companies of Nigeria, Olusola Teniola, said the mobile network operators where experiencing congestion, which was responsible for poor quality of services.
This, according to him, is because some employees are still working remotely and students are learning online.
Teniola noted that the telecom network in the country was built mostly for voice services, saying that there was an urgent need to build infrastructure that would support a digital economy.
Teniola stated, “There won’t be significant improvement until we as an industry can re-calibrate our network to bring additional capacity to ensure that working from home becomes the new norm with the way we are able to build and design our networks.
“The implementation of the Nigerian National Broadband Plan will give us an opportunity to build a network for the future. We don’t have a network for the future. We have a network that is built purely for voice. We now need a network that is for the digital economy.”
He added that a network for the future that would support a digital economy should have a speed of 50 megabytes per second and above.
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