It is no more news that since the outbreak and spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) across countries of the world, all major activities have been on an abrupt halt without certainty and hope of recovering so soon. Economy of many countries are deteriorating into recession even when majority are in already, education system, political system even the social system have been paused.
Japan Olympic games 2020, Euro 2020, Nigeria National Sport Festival, Edo 2020 were key sporting events that got suspended and some postponed till the coming year while few domestic leagues are just crawling back to their feet with strict measures in place.
With this ever increasing spread and effect on sectors of countries, many are giving their nods to the reopening of their economy so as to save it from total crumbling and collapse even far beyond sudden and immediate repair and did not completely shut down their giving you at for chances of survival.
With the resumption of the economy and some other sectors of the human life, questions flipping through the minds of many is “When will our schools reopen?”.
Since the first recorded case in February, learning institutions in Nigeria were some of the sectors forced to an immediate shutdown probably as a result of its inability to careful observed some of the precautionary measures or proneness to contribute to the spread of the virus.
Unlike countries that have had their schools reopened such as China, Korea, Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Japan et al where the virus spread have been curtailed to a reasonable extent, the virus is still very much active in Nigeria and even many other Africa countries with daily increase in hundreds depending on the testing capacity on daily basis.
Since the virus is still very much active with us and amongst us, reopening the schools at this time is tantamount to risking the lives of the future of our dear nation.
On the average, the student:teacher ratio depending on the country is expected to be 16:1, 17:1 and at most 45:1, but a journey to the African schools, the atmosphere produced as a result of the extreme overpopulation in the classes would throw you off your feet. You see classes with average of over 50 depending on the level.
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For the secondary, what you see is the students in their hundreds and sadly you see just a teacher in charge of such setting. The higher institutions of learning is a no go area. You can ask why do schools have 500 capacity lecture theatres and even more when the standard ratio is around 45:1.
If our schools could reopen, how would we be able to exercise the social distancing precaution amongst such large number of students?. How well will the students be able to cope amongst themselves in the face of this pandemic?.
Countries that decided to reopen took their time to put so many in place before the order was given. Germany for example, gave its students proper drilling and orientation before its declaration with continuous disinfecting of hands and surfaces within the schools.
In China’s Beijing, survey was carried out using a phone App to calculate risk of infection and some students were given personal thermometers to check their temperature twice a day.
Reasonably, a developing country like Nigeria cannot do all of this even when it is still battling with the process of testing its citizens. Testing capacity is still very low compared to the over 170 million population spread across the nook and cranny of the country and many still carrying the virus around though could be asymptomatic.
Opening the schools at this time might pave way for a second wave of the virus even when we are till completely locked up in the first wave. South Korea which gave the go ahead was forced to shut them few days after reopening its schools after a spike in its cases. Our future should be secured for “he who runs from a fight lives to fight another day”.
Though the online learning might not be our way as our 21st century students are inclined to the 20th century teachers using the 19th century curriculum in an 18th century class setting but it can still be used to salvage the situation we are in. Use of the mainstream and social media should be adequately and continuously harnessed for learning without limiting it to the younger folks but an inclusion of all across all levels of learning.
Shotonwa Waheed is a journalist and can be reached via shotonwa.waheed@gmail.com and 08087494866
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