ARTICLE 1: ON MATTERS AFFECTING THE NATION

|The Federal Government’s Decision To Pull Nigeria Out Of The 2020 WASSCE Examination And The Effects Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On Nigerian Students|

The legal luminary and founder of Afe Babalola University, Afe Babalola, has kicked against the decision of the Federal government to cancel Nigeria’s participation in the 2020 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE). According to Babalola, a year of idleness for graduating students could breed frustration and promote violence.

Babalola's statement comes after the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, announced that Nigeria will not be reopening schools for students scheduled to write the WASSCE examination due to the increasing numbers of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country.

This decision, Babalola believes, is flawed because graduating students in the country will lose their final secondary school year and an integral part of their lives.

Rather than cancel the examination, Babalola suggests that the Federal government allow educational institutions to conduct the WASSCE examinations within their multipurpose halls so that students and teachers can obey all the COVID-19 protocols such as social distancing and others.

Going beyond Babalola’s statement regarding the withdrawal of Nigeria to participate in the WASSCE examinations, I would like to point out another issue that stems from the Nigerian government’s decision to curtail the spread of Coronavirus by banning physical attendance in educational institutions.

It may not come as a surprise to many that the temporary closure of schools within and outside the country has forced several school administrators to adopt remote learning methods that allow teaching to continue via technology and online assessments. However, in a country like Nigeria where many children and even educational institutions, such as those in the public sector, lack access to the technologies and digital tools that facilitate remote learning, equality in education seems to be deteriorating more than ever.

If this continues, kids unable to keep up with their peers due to inaccessibility to digital tools may never catch up and will continue to feel the effect long after the pandemic is over. Furthermore, this may result in a severely diminishing pool of young adults who have not garnered the necessary skills to stay ahead in the future, and with Nigeria already behind in preparing its young people for the workplace of the future, the effects of the pandemic further exacerbate the issue.

I believe the solution to this problem lies in the willingness of the Nigerian government to ensure that learning continues during the pandemic. The government can achieve this by providing necessary aids to both public and private educational institutions in the country and starting up a free remote learning program for poor children living in underserved communities.