By Johnson Mercy Chidinma
The seriousness of the Covid-19 virus hit Nigerians after the government declared a total lockdown in march 2020 requiring all schools and buisnesses, etc to shut down. We all watched a whole 2020 roll away so quickly.
No doubt, despite the opportunity to meet and see everyone’s faces after such a long time, we cannot deny the coldness that envelopes the state of activities in the post-pandemic era. The pandemic has totally brought about a different way of life for people in the world. From the constant wearing of face mask, maintaining social distance, etc This new development has and still affects the state of activities in Nigerian Universities.
Using the University of Lagos as a case study, it has been declared that only classes with students below 50 are to observe physical classes as the others would continue to make use of the LMS platform which obviously had issues the last time it was used. This would definitely affect the learning of the students especially in departments that require more practicality and physical explanations as it is a fresh semester with novel courses in most departments.
Social events have also been put on hold at the moment. This is quite a sad development for the students because truly the social events that the school attracts due to her influence seems to be the life and buzz of campus. Beyond Academics, the social events aid in extra-curricular learning, networking which is very vital and interesting for students in the institution. Also, hall week, convocation, etc have no hope of occurring this semester as long as the Covid-19 preventive measures are still to be put in practice.
Religious events for the spiritual health of the students have no flexible grounds for operation on campus due to the government’s directive which the school intends to respect.
With all this in place and the fate of events somewhat bleak, one could assert that learning and education in the post-pandemic era would be boring, starved of life and nutrients.