Part 1: What Plans Does the Ministry of Education Have for Nigerian Youth as the Pandemic Continues?
It is no news that navigating the COVID-19 pandemic life is an uncharted territory for everyone globally. However, the disruption of some systems seem to be more dire. One that stands out to me is the disruption of the education system in Nigeria. This is disturbing, we have a lot of young people from primary school to university students who have been home since March of this year, at the wake of the increase in the COVID-19 cases in Nigeria. These young people are faced with a lot of uncertainties, including how and when they would continue with their education. There have been news and speculations that some agencies are suggesting postponing school resumptions until next year or some undisclosed time.
This lack of structure or concrete plans for the students is not reassuring and looks like we are gambling with the future of Nigeria. How can we be handling the education of our next generation with such laissez-faire attitude, while they are some how meant to be at par or even compete with youths in other countries who have continued to pursue their education. In other parts of the world, COVID-19 may have changed the teaching modality, but it did not stop students from graduating or completing their academic year. This should be a wake up call for Nigeria to do better, , we cannot be left behind in educating our youth. This is a disservice to our nation and a failure to our youths, who are key drivers in shaping the growth and development of our country- Nigeria. (We have so much untapped creatives and human capital).
While there are concerns of COVID-19 transmissions in schools, which is fair given the increase in the cases in the country. Nonetheless, we have to come up with strategies to accommodate students education. We have to be intentional in ensuring that their needs are met. My question will be, if Nigeria is unable to accommodate in-person teaching, what about working towards a virtual learning platform for students to continue with their education? We cannot stall the progress our youth. If this problem is not addressed, there will be backlogs of students not graduating or those progressing in their academic pursuit. Of course, there are limitations with having virtual classes, we would be cutting out a group of students who do not have access to internet or laptops. In that case, it is clear that this solution would not be work for everyone.
To address this critical need, what about asking young people themselves, what they want and how this could be solved. Our young people have the capabilities and knowledge to drive change more than we allow them to. This may a period for us to give our young people the chance to address this crucial problem. Our leaders could consider crowdsourcing solutions from young people, this should be done like today. We have to be intentional about young people, and apply empathy in leadership. How would we feel if we had to be home instead of continuing with our education, when we think there are ways to rectify the problem?
This is an appeal to our government to pay great attention to this need to ensure that Nigerian youth are not left behind as the rest of world continue to educate their youth.