Poor internet brings academic work to a virtual standstill

Nigeria’s universities have been struggling to shift their activities online following the 20 March federal government shutdown to restrict public gatherings and curb the spread of the coronavirus. Among the reasons is poor internet infrastructure and a lack of reliable electricity supplies.

The shutdown has left campuses deserted as students returned to their homes. Except for staff with official residences on campus, lecturers too have largely vacated their offices.

“Even the administrative work is shut down because of the general lockdown,” Omololu Soyombo, professor of sociology at the University of Lagos (UNILAG), told University World News. “The staff cannot come to their offices and everywhere is at a standstill.”

Whether the month-long closure ordered by the National Universities Commission, Nigeria’s regulator of university education, will be prolonged after 23 April remains to be seen. But given this was mandated to “contain and prevent the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) throughout the country”, as per the commission’s order, a swift resumption looks unlikely as cases are still growing.

Nigeria's Centre for Disease Control said on 7 April there were 16 new confirmed cases nationwide, bringing the total to 254, with 44 cases having been discharged and six deaths being recorded.

Lai Oso, professor of mass communications at Lagos State University, said poor public internet infrastructure has meant students are finding it difficult to undertake academic work remotely, including the use of virtual libraries which he noted are absent in many Nigerian universities.

Poor infrastructure, lack of power

“Many people are disadvantaged in terms of the poor infrastructure that we have in the country,” Oso said. “I have had contact with some of my students who say that even for a whole day there may be no power supply and in some cases the internet connection is very poor.”

These issues highlight the challenges Nigerian universities face in making online learning serve as an alternative for a majority of students while physical facilities are closed.

That said, email can help, requiring very little bandwidth, with many Nigerian lecturers supporting research students who have submitted projects and chapters via email.

At UNILAG, Soyombo has used the ‘track changes’ function on MS Word to highlight corrections and comments, inviting responses from students. Some continuous assessment papers are also being submitted online via email. As a result, he said his students can make some progress on their research projects before the universities reopen.

No equal internet access

However, Soyombo stressed that Nigeria’s weak internet infrastructure would impede the delivery of lectures online. “Even if the lecturer can arrange to do something, the next problem would be internet access for students wherever they maybe,” he said.

“And once you cannot guarantee equal access for all the students – some in Lagos, some outside Lagos, some in their villages – then really it will not be ideal to have anything like that. Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee internet access in Nigeria.”

Academics and students have also been hit hard by power cuts, which are common in Nigeria. “When you’re in school, you have some kind of access to electricity,” Oso said. “If the public supply is off, the university can put on the generator which means you can do some work. That is not possible if you are at home.”

With the shutdown, the university course and examination calendar has inevitably been affected, according to Soyombo. “The university management [at UNILAG] will have to look at it,” to minimise the impact on students and academics. He was concerned that students will face a glut of academic work with shortened deadlines once classes resume.

Certainly, the disruption is already upsetting Nigerian students.

Possible delays in graduation

“Some students were supposed to write their first professional exams this April, but now with the COVID-19 crisis, everyone had to go home,” said Victor Iferikigwe, public relations officer with the University of Nigeria Medical Students’ Association, in Enugu State, South East Nigeria. “What it means is that their date of graduation might be extended by a month if the lockdown ends in April. If not, it will affect the year of graduation.”

Postgraduate students are also affected. Before the shutdown, students at Lagos State University’s School of Communication had been preparing for an internal defence of their theses ahead of submission to external examiners. “All that has been shelved,” said Oso. “And I am sure we have similar cases in other faculties and departments.”

Those still researching and writing their theses have been hit particularly hard because of the lack of access to facilities such as the university library needed for research work. That is because functional public libraries, where available, are rarely open at present, according to Oso. “Even if they [the students] are allowed to go out, there are none they can use,” he said.

International academic connections and travel have also been impeded; the Nigerian government closed the country’s land and air borders on 23 March after identifying the country’s first case of coronavirus in late February.

On 29 March, it ordered businesses and offices closed in Abuja and Lagos – the two cities with the largest number of cases – for an initial two weeks. The order was also extended to Ogun, a state next to Lagos and Nigeria’s economic hub.

Intervention funds

President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the establishment of a US$1.39 billion coronavirus intervention fund to upgrade health facilities and support Nigeria’s states in boosting the local response to the pandemic.

On Monday 6 April, Finance Minister Zainab Ahmed announced plans to raise US$6.9 billion from the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and the African Development Bank, to fund measures to fight COVID-19 and mitigate its impact on Africa’s most populous country of 200 million.

As these emergency measures are put in place, members of Nigeria’s academic community are drawing lessons for the future. Soyombo said the pandemic shows how Nigerian higher education institutions could play a role in researching potential medical cures for emerging diseases and associated public health studies.

“But a major problem, I see, as has always been the case, is inadequate funding for the higher education institutions, for the research that needs to be conducted, and then the infrastructural facilities needed for this to take place.”

For Oso, the near-paralysis of academic and learning activities due to the shutdown of universities points to the increased need for investment in education technology and infrastructure.

“We should see the positive aspect of this thing in terms of leveraging technology for academic delivery,” he said. “One thing this will likely teach us is that we should prepare for the use of virtual learning technology, online instruction and getting students and lecturers to have access to virtual libraries.”