EducationNigeriaOpinionNigerian Schools: To Resume or Not to Resume?

Avatar PilotnewsSeptember 2, 2020

And if schools resume next year or even a few years later with the same problem still in place, is this the kind of normal we should go back to?

―Ebuka Onyekwelu

In normal times, by next week, Nigerian primary and secondary schools are supposed to be resuming for a new academic session in line with the age-long school calendar. But the year 2020 is nothing ordinary or normal by any strand of imagination given the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the shockwaves it has sent across all sectors of the economy and facets of human endeavors, not just in Nigeria but all over the world. These are not without consequences as every one of us has sacrificed something through the curve in the process of finding solutions.

Seven months down the line, while life is gradually taking shape with the measured re-opening of the economy, social and religious gatherings, schools however remains closed with no plan of resumption. No agenda, policy option, or directive clearly being followed by the government for school resumption in one month or one year. Nothing but just waiting for no one knows. There are thus grave uncertainties about school resumption and those are not without concerns.

Consequently, arguments as to the fate of school children and the entire education system have doubled, yet, the position of government remains hesitant at the federal level and from state to state. No one knows just when schools will resume or what the government is doing in the meantime for successful resumption of schools at any later date. Schools are shut and students are at home, nothing else. Perhaps, Nigeria is waiting for a vaccine that is still largely uncertain when exactly it will be ready before schools can be resumed.

It is increasingly difficult to answer simple poser like what the Nigerian government is doing to ensure that schools resume in so or so time. COVID-19 pandemic has left a lot of lessons and moving forward, government and individuals must leverage on some of these lessons to keep living and moving forward without being trapped at a spot on account of fear of the unknown. Parents and guardians are anxious about the safety of their children, teachers and lecturers are worried about the safety of the students and their own safety. Even the Academic Staff Union of University – ASUU- that is currently on strike has expressed their desire for the Federal Government to pause school till next year.

Are we really left with the singular option of keeping schools locked while expecting that maybe next year, we will wake up and walk into a COVID-19 free world, and then suddenly everything will return to normal?

More than six months after, some vital deductions and lessons from the pandemic should place us in a vantage position to take a stand rather than float helplessly in uncertainty. At this point, the argument is not so much about if school now has to re-open more than it is about what government is doing at the moment to transit the school system from the usual and make it new normal friendly. Actually, it does not matter if school resumes today or next year, the most important thing is Nigerian schools are ready for the post-COVID-19 education model? However, not much attention is given to applying some of the lessons of the pandemic to our schools and the learning process in preparation for an eventual opening.

Nevertheless, the questions remain, why exactly are schools closed?

Commentators are pushing the narrative along two divides; on one hand, there are those saying schools should not open but on the other, we have those that favour re-opening of schools. Nevertheless, the questions remain, why exactly are schools closed? For how long will they remain closed and is the closure part of any deliberate government response pattern or merely circumstantial and based purely on fear of the unknown? On the other side, the questions are; under what conditions are schools going to be opened? Are we truly expecting that schools should resume and we carry on as always like it was during the pre-pandemic era? These are the questions, to my mind, that should shape the discourse.

In many Nigerian public higher institutions, a classroom originally designed for about forty or fifty students has over one hundred students who besiege the venue on a daily for classes. In some cases, classes meant for about fifty students end up taking over four hundred students, and usually, the crowd and jam-pack in the small classrooms with little or no ventilation and many of the students sweating profusely and throwing sweats and other body fluids around at each other. Assuming schools resume now, is this the normal Nigerian students are going back to? And if schools resume next year or even a few years later with the same problem still in place, is this the kind of normal we should go back to? In many government secondary and primary schools, there are not enough seats for the pupils. So five pupils usually share a seat designed originally for three people.

In many schools, there is too much workload for teachers who are then made to teach more than one or two subjects for the same class. In summary, there is a gross deficit in manpower and infrastructure in Nigerian schools and with that, it does not matter if schools open today or next year, without these core problems being addressed.

Government should invest the time on devising strategies to end the perennial strike action by ASUU over various age-long labour disputes.

Conversations around re-opening schools must start with some basic reforms and remodeling of Nigerian public schools. The federal government should not waste the lockdown banking on the fact that schools are not on session. Instead, it should invest the time on devising strategies to end the perennial strike action by ASUU over various age-long labour disputes. The government should invest the time to properly plan in detail, how Nigerian students should be educated in a better and more effective environment rather than fold arms aimlessly waiting for the pandemic to be over so that we will all return to the status quo.

The government and schools must invest in virtual learning and corollaries as part of lessons picked from the pandemic, moving forward. State governments must invest adequately in education in their states by upgrading their schools’ infrastructure and employing more teachers for ease of both teaching and learning. Otherwise, the ‘normal’ known to Nigerian students are not suitable for schools to open, not today, not ever.

Ebuka Onyekwelu, strategic governance exponent,  is a columnist with the WAP

 

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