Every student of Pan Atlantic University will from Monday, May 11, receive a gift of 3gigabytes of data a week in compassionate support to access lectures as the highbrow private university declared its intention to march on with online tutorials in the wake of uncertainty around Covid-19.
Vice Chancellor Juan Manuel Elegido announced the decision of the institution to continue online instruction for the remainder of the 2019/2020 academic year as well as the 2020/2021 session, hoping to commence October 2020. The decision represents a nod to the new paradigm of online learning as the primary method of instruction in education. The school would “teach, learn, collaborate and work online” in the days ahead.
Like most institutions, Pan Atlantic University closed its lecture halls before the first lockdown of Lagos by the Lagos State government. It then switched students into online tutorials as it continued lectures for the second semester of the 2019/2020 session.
Before the across-the-board 3gig data offer, PAU offered an allowance of N1,500 weekly to students on 75 to 100 percent scholarships. It also recorded slides and provided them to students of all Zoom sessions. PAU stated, “It requires up to 80 percent fewer data to download a pre-recorded session than to participant in it live and the download can be done even if one’s internet connection is unstable.”
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In a letter to all students on Friday, May 7, the PAU Vice Chancellor disclosed the decision of the University Management Council that the school would also conduct its examinations online subject to the approval of the Senate, continue compulsory internships required for graduation by appealing to companies to consider allowing students to do them online and plan ahead for the new session along the new paradigm. It would not pursue voluntary internships this period.
The PAU vice chancellor declared, “As for the next academic session, much depends on decisions by the Ministry of Education and the National Universities Commission (NUC). However, if we are not prevented from doing so by these regulators, we are fully committed to starting the 2020/21 session in early October, as we have done every year. Whether we can do so physically or will have to start the session working fully or partially online will depend on the public health situation by then.”
Elegido’s two-page letter to students described the evolution of a change in paradigm towards online instruction globally.
“Considering the impact of the pandemic in those countries and what their universities are doing as well as the statements by the Nigerian authorities, we can assume that we will be unable to fully resume on the campus for several months. (Certainly, we will not do so within the next four weeks.)”, the Vice Chancellor stated. “It also seems extremely likely that we may well still be working online, fully or partially, at the beginning of next academic session. In other words, This Is Most Likely Not A Provisional Situation”, he said.
The shift to online recalls an earlier era in Nigerian education characterised by use of the postal service. Students enrolled for courses in universities abroad, took the Cambridge School Certificate and later the West African School Certificate and received tutorials by correspondence. Many institutions opened to offer correspondence courses both locally and mainly in the UK.
PAU said its decisions aim to minimise the disruption to the plans of students, particularly those in the final year. Elegido declared, “if we want to minimize the disruption to everybody’s learning and academic progress, and to the final year students’ graduation times, we all need to make a serious effort to adjust to the current challenges and keep upgrading the way we teach, learn, collaborate and work online.”
Coronavirus has caused closures of universities and other higher institutions across the world. In the US, at least 1, 102 colleges and universities closed their campuses. Georgetown University professor Bryan Alexander estimates that college closures have impacted over 14 million students. The University of Washington was the first large university to shut down on March 7 and asked students to take exams remotely. Harvard University went online on 25 March with all its 20, 000 undergraduate and graduate students, faculties, and courses.
The cost of transition to online is a major concern for UK universities. Experts estimate the schools could lose up to 2.5billion pounds a year. Prof Sir Tim O’Shea, the former vice-chancellor of Edinburgh University said in a report in The Guardian (UK) that only around 20 universities are in a good position to provide a range of high-quality online courses by the start of the new academic year in September. He said this includes schools in the Russel Group rankings. The Russel Group rankings is a list of the UK’s top 24 universities based on research output and teaching excellence. There is stiff competition for entry into it as the rankings change annually.
