COVID-19 AND THE ACADEMIC SECTOR

Are University Degrees Still Delivering its Promises?

 

We all know that the pandemic affected the world, putting some nations in more difficult situation than others. Stocks were tanking, markets are loosing millions, some banks trying to wipe out most of its workforce because they needed a crisis to know they don’t really need as much persons as they have employed, churches and mosques being asked to shut down, a lot has happened since the pandemic but there is one sector that was both affected and in a way exposed some of its questionable flaws. How exactly has the pandemic affected the academic sector and in extension students and what is university in its entirety going to look like after the pandemic?

Now due to its highly dense population, it would have been disastrous for the country, if by any means a student contacted the virus within the school environment, with that in mind the government acted swiftly and schools became one of the first sectors to be shut down during the onset of the current pandemic and just as it could have been predicted companies whose products promotes more time at home and immobility started recording high margins in profits. Netflix is soaring in pricey stock and MTN N? Mainly by its voice calls MTN N reported a revenue of ₦329.1b in Q1 2020, that's an astounding 16.7% increase in comparison with the ₦282.1b they made in Q1 2019, can you picture these figures? This alone can point us towards what exactly half the population could be doing during the pandemic.

 

No Attention

 

Presently some sectors has been getting address from the government on its reopening, some markets in some states are open, banking institutions are creeping back into the scene and some others, but it seems as though the sector that houses the supposed future of Nigeria isn’t getting as much attention as it should. There are app. 2 million students in Nigerian tertiary institutions, first of all  in a country that over 30 million of its population are youths, 2 million is less than 1% of our population and I’m guessing you’ll be asking where the remaining 28 million youths are, that is another discussion entirely but 2 million out of the 30 million are students and they’ve been kept at home for more than two holidays combined. Why? Considering that the students play a significant roll in boosting the entire GDP of the country with their unguided purchases and lifestyle. Yes, It may be risky to let them go back to school but why no updates about school resumption, some state government has let some of its markets to open but not students, does that mean that the old groundnut seller in the market down the street is worth more to the economy those studying chemical engineering, mass comm, medicine? Does it mean they can breathe well without the input of its student? Think about those questions.

 

What Are They Doing?

 

On the other hand, what are the students doing indoors in a country where data is readily expensive just in case you suggest they take up online courses (which is a very wonderful tool by the way; in fact you should if you can) what are they doing? I asked quite a few of them and their responses had similar words inside, sleep, eat, press phone. Now when the future of a country is recycling those activities for 2 months plus, then um…..

The ministry of education in Lagos and some states released a scheduled radio and TV lessons for students mainly for public schools. Radios? Really? You, my wonderful audience, ask yourself the color of your radio app, let’s not talk about if you even open it at all, what is the color? And we know that children don’t turn on the television to learn unless nickelodeon is no longer working. So while this initiative might have been applauded (in fact it should) it is doing little to curb the level of complacency growing among the students, and this is not including the fact that power issue is a huge problem in the country, because you’ll need power for the TV, so what exactly is the role of the minister of education again? Do we have one? During this pandemic one of the most active ministers if not the most active has been the minister of finance, is that a pointer on what the country’s priorities are? This is how bad it has gotten and fact that it is getting little or no dressing from the government is making it more troubling. You must understand that this is not in defense of the students who would rather spend half the day on twitter than do something to harness the times passing by but the question is why they have not received any address except from the June 8 briefing that was only giving terms and condition that they know can almost easily be handled by these institutions that all they are waiting for you is to say, go.

 In other words nothing progressive whatsoever from the government that is supposed to step in in times like this and reassure the students that the reasons they decided to pursue a degree is still in tact. Before the pandemic, the question ‘if degrees are still worth it’ was already lingering in peoples mind but now that some students who can access online courses are already thinking on what exactly is the university’s selling point if they can get almost the same thing if not better online coupled with the current response it is getting from the government, the question is becoming louder.

 

No Room For Complacency

 

This is not to massage our commonly used phrase ‘school na scam ideology’ because overtime those with a university degree earn more than its counterparts that stopped education at the secondary level by some millions of naira margin. For a country where more than half its population dwells in poverty, the safest route into a predictable comfortable life is in getting a university degree and the chances of you being able to support your immediate family is above 65%. While crimes are climbing through the roofs, rape cases becoming more rampant, the youths drinking more than they should and slowly making smoking a way of life, the discussion is not really between male and female or strong and weak but between those with degrees that are educated and those without a degree that are uneducated. So facts are still in favor of those with university degrees, that is to say that you have a higher chance at succeeding and being a wonderful non beastly citizen with a degree than without one but still those chances aren't 100% and that is where the question is, that little percentage that doesn't make it a 100% chance, which should you bet on? While the guarantees that you’ll get a good job after acquiring a degree is falling, the risk of not getting a degree is skyrocketing, if you don’t get it, think of it like "an end of the world apocalypse where the means to survive is by racing but when you run without skills you die and when you don’t run at all you die." I don’t know if you’ve gotten the drift but universities used to be the surest road to a better life but today you are not getting out of it as much as you are putting in because while the tuition fees and the academic work load on students are on the rise, the quality of education keeps dropping. Why you would ask, that is what we will be discussing in the part 2 of this piece, because schools are now due to greed treating a school like a mafia business, where the main goal isn’t to impact usable and convertible knowledge but to get as much profit as possible with minimal cash flow/input. Join me tomorrow and we will find out, until then, you've been an amazing person, thanks for stopping by. What are your thoughts? Do you still think schools are the surest way to attain the very reason most students go to school? Let me know in the comment section down below, thank you .