By Hannah Ogunnusi and Abdullah Salaudeen.
The school management in a memorandum released on September 1st, 2023 announced that the 2022/2023 rain semester lecture will be conducted virtually, for the first five weeks, from September 4th, 2023 till October 7, 2023. This decision, as approved by the University senate, was taken in a bid to reduce the economic hardships encountered by students commuting to the university daily.
This decision was taken by the Senate at its 424th Meeting held on Thursday, 31st August, 2023. Before this announcement, due to the increment in transportation fares to school, many students have been seen trekking from their various hostels to the main OOU campus as they could not afford the increased transportation fee. The five-week virtual classes will end in a few days, Campus Mirror spoke with students of Olabisi Onabanjo University to share their experiences about the ongoing virtual classes.
Eboka Peace, a 300-level student of the Economics Education department shares her experience with classes. She finds the teaching of calculations virtually difficult to assimilate since calculations aren't that self-explanatory.
“So far it has been okay apart from the fact that I don’t get calculations teaching because it’s virtual and I don’t seem to understand. I have issues with my phone, so most times, I miss lectures, when I eventually join, I won’t have access again. But so far it has been okay”
Another student in the 200-level Mass Communication department, Ayoade Olamide also lamented about the decision to the virtual classes.
“For me, the online class is not okay at all due to network glitches, data consumption, and other factors. Though it's relieving based on the fact that it's an alternate solution to subsidize the financial burden caused by the present economic crisis but still, it's not going well for me here. Sometimes, when there's class, I have a low battery, other times I'll be busy with work or have little or no data. What pains me mostly is the attendance I've lost so far.”
According to Ozoya Joshua, a 300-level student also shared that virtual classes help students to cut costs, but have their disadvantages.
“We talk about internet connection, environmental disturbance such as background noise, application data consumption, etc. All these are a few disadvantages I experienced in virtual classes. Sometimes, lecturers try as much as possible to explain concepts, but due to internet failure, they will in essence summarize for the class to end the class early. To be sincere, virtual classes just is not the way forward, as it will weaken academic performance by students.”
A student in the political science department also shows dissatisfaction with his inability to understand lectures in virtual classes.
“I have not really been going to classes for a while, because of this LMS password but I got it sorted out now and the only time I went to class I just wasted my data because I didn't even understand what the man was saying and in the end, I did not gain anything, sometimes they will drop a link for the class and it would not go leaving me frustrated.”
“My experience has been awful.” He said.
The decision of virtual classes was taken by the university with the interests of all Olabisi Onabanjo students at heart and the university also advised all students to take the attendance and participation of each virtual class seriously as they would in physical lectures. However, as the virtual classes will end soon, students think that the school management should look for ways to avoid the issues attached to virtual classes.
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