Professor Anthony Eze of the Nnamdi Azikwe University (NAU), Awka, has decried the ineffective take off of online based education system due to lack of enabling infrastructure.
Eze, who is the Dean of Faculty of Education of NAU, said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Awka Tuesday.
He also said that the ongoing lockdown had crippled the various socio-economic activities.
He added that it was having an adverse effect on education and there was the need to adopt alternative means of salvaging the sector.
The educationist said that e-learning had been effective in some African countries.
He said that this was not entirely new to them as they possess the critical infrastructure including electricity to make it work.
According to him, the lockdown has affected the children seriously; they are at home wasting away their time, and they are unguided educationally. The trend, he said, is a setback on the education system.
“E-learning is the only way we can bridge the gap that this lockdown is causing in the education sector. We are losing a lot to it, though , it is not peculiar to Nigeria, it is a global challenge.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have what it takes to make it effective. It requires constant electricity supply, installation of computers, communication gadgets for students and cost effective data.
“We have come to the technology age where education is taking place online and many countries are taking advantage of it.
“They include African nations such as Ghana and South Africa that had invested huge sums of money in technology.
“It is not working in Nigeria like in those countries; at best we are having online meetings and conferences. There is no infrastructure, and government has to invest in electricity and required equipment,” he said.
Eze also expressed worry over the elongated stay-at-home order by the government and advised students to design their own study schedules and read studiously to avoid being learning rusty.
He said that the lost time could be recovered anytime the pandemic was over.
The don also urged African leaders to consider homegrown solutions to the COVID-19 pandemic by giving necessary attentions to African scientists and their medicines.
“I believe we can recover from this situation and regain the lost time, we have passed through the worse situation and later recovered from it.
“What is important is getting over this pandemic” he said.
