Learning in a pandemic, when 'online school' is the village chalkboard

By Nneka Chile and Alexis Akwagyiram
LAGOS, May 1 (Reuters) - With her school shut because of the
coronavirus, Tolu Alagba kneels as she copies down class notes
from a communal village chalkboard, the closest thing to online
lessons on an island with no electricity, a boat ride from
Nigeria's megacity Lagos.
Like much of the world, Nigeria ordered schools shut in late
March to curb the spread of the coronavirus. But while children
in many countries have shifted to online lessons, that is all
but impossible in most of Nigeria, where fewer than 8 percent of
households have access to the internet.
In Tolu's small fishing community, a retired teacher has
volunteered to teach around 20 children three times a week in
sessions lasting two hours. Children unable to attend in person
can copy out the notes by hand, posted on the chalkboard mounted
in a communal veranda.
"I'm happy, a teacher brings us together to learn a few
things," said Tolu, 13.
The pandemic, and the global shutdown of schools, is
deepening educational disparities between rich and poor, both
between countries and within them, said Ydo Yao, regional
director in West Africa of UN education agency UNESCO.
Wealthier Nigerian families have access to the internet, and
schools in affluent areas offer some form of distance learning.
Kesiena Onoge, in the Ogudu suburb of Lagos, spends 5,000
naira ($14) each week on internet and electricity - a large sum
in a country where most people live on less than $2 a day. It
enables her to go online for up to two hours a day with her
six-year-old daughter, Naomi.
But even here, and despite the expense, the materials are
far from what pupils in rich countries might expect.
"Network generally is bad and slow, and then uploading or
attaching the assignment is tough," said Onoge.
Nigeria has recorded more than 1,700 cases of the new
coronavirus, resulting in 51 deaths. Although the president has
announced a gradual and phased end to a lockdown in Lagos from
Monday, no plans have been announced to reopen schools.
With online learning off limits to most children,
authorities are hoping educational programming on older media
such as television and radio can help.
Nigeria's states will provide lessons on radio and TV, on
subjects ranging from English and maths to economics and
chemistry, according to a tweet from the government on Thursday
listing a timetable of programmes.
Nigeria has experience of searching for alternative ways to
educate children. In the northeast, an insurgency by Boko Haram
Islamist militants has kept some 10 million children aged 6-11
from attending school. Local broadcasters have been showing
educational programmes on TV there for years.
"We need to multiply offline solutions," said Yao.
On her island, surrounded by children playing and laughing,
Tolu says she is grateful for the makeshift classes that have
replaced her school. "I am happy about the lessons."
($1 = 360.0000 naira)