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We’ll integrate online with physical teaching –LASU VC

Prof. ‘Lanre Fagbohun, the Vice-Chancellor of the Lagos State University (LASU) speaks in an interview on EKO 89.7 FM about the readiness to reopen the institution closed down in March along with other educational institutions in the country by the Federal Government due to the outbreak of Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. KAYODE OLANREWAJU monitored the interview

 

What has been the impact of COVID-19 on the activities of the university?

 

The impact of COVID-19 pandemic as we know it has been quite significant on the universities globally. In one of the studies conducted by UNESCO globally, it was identified that in over 185 countries, higher education institutions were closed down.

 

So, what we should ask ourselves is what has been the impact on the university in terms of academic delivery, and others.

 

The first one is the disruption of the academic calendar, that is, our inability to complete the 2019/2020 academic session that is ongoing; the impact on the enrolment of new students, were all affected.

The other significant impact I want to say is the research engagement that we have with partner institutions both within and outside the country all through the month of April and successive months till date.

 

We have had to reschedule all these engagements. Besides, this has also affected international travels for research and conferences. So, you can see the vagaries of all these along the broad spectrum of our activities.

 

But, I will say that the most direct impact is the effects in teaching and learning. We had to virtually close down face-to-face teaching since then. And, in this I must express our deep appreciation to the Visitor to our university, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the Governor of Lagos State for the prompt response that he gave to the main challenges that we are having in this area.

 

This was not in relation to what was confronting Lagos State University alone, but all the tertiary institutions in Lagos State. There are three critical challenges, and these are access to technical infrastructure, and how do we re-orientate the competencies and pedagogues of our institutions because when we decided to go on virtual/online teaching it is a totally different ball game all together. We did not at that time have the full spectrum of required infrastructure in place and that was when Mr. Governor through the Office of the Special Adviser on Education came in to provide a platform for all tertiary institutions in Lagos State to enroll our students on virtual learning platforms.

 

Aside the guidelines that were provided to our Faculty members to upload their contents, we were able to also quickly scale up their technical competencies using the support team of our ICT, faculty members from the Computer Science Department and those of them in the Educational Development Technology Department and the Multi- Media Unit.

 

We had to assemble all of these teams together so that quickly they could upscale these competencies because one of the things that were notable in Lagos State University is that since the close down till date; activities have not stopped in our university.

 

So, you can see the prompt response of the state government to providing this infrastructure for us, and how it assisted us to be able to move within the league of institutions that are now able to pontificate and say that all through the period of this crisis we have been able to continue our activities. We were able to deplore all this to support migration to online lectures. I must also note that it is not as if we did not meet some challenges. One of the things that comes to mind is whether or not it was so seamless.

No, I will not say it is so seamless, but one of the things we succeeded in achieving in the past four years is the orientation of our world-class students. The students have greatly changed; they are now positive, constructive in their approach and always ready to embrace things that will    add value.

 

What of the online teaching, how has it been successful between the students that are participating and the lecturers dishing out the lectures?

 

Yes, what I am saying in essence is that when we started it was not that what we migrated to was seamless without challenge, but because of the orientation of our institution, who were ready to take on new challenges it was not so difficult for us since we have always engaged in an inclusive approach.

 

What we did was that we invited all the student leaders on the zoom platform and we were having regular meetings to always take the feedback of students based on what we are doing. But while we were doing this, two things immediately came out clear to us. That is, what was the challenge of energy, and the other was the challenge of data. Again, how did we manage this?

 

What we did was to encourage our faculty members to prepare their materials in such a way that they will do voiceover in their lesson notes and then put it on the platform for students to go there at their convenient time and download the materials. What will have succeeded in doing to a large extent is that we have been going on with our lectures with our students taking their feedback through the student leaders.

 

When I say student leaders, I am saying students’ union leaders, faculty heads and faculty presidents. All of us every evening around 7 o’clock on Saturdays and Sundays engaged ourselves and this conversation will go on till 11p.m a times with these student leaders and we take their feedback from the platform. Through this, the students were able to know those challenges and we were able to resolve them as we moved forward.

 

What percentage of students participated in the online classes?

 

Well, let me say that with what we were able to do, we were able to get between 60 and 65 per cent of our students. Naturally there will be some people (students), who for reasons of not too interested in joining the programme, or that have one challenge or another might not join.

 

But, from the data we were able to generate we found out that we were able to get about 65 per cent of our students who participated actively in this activity. And, because it is a new thing we see it as a major achievement for us.

 

Your colleagues in private universities actually had examinations for their students, was it possible for LASU to have done examinations virtually for students and if not, are we looking towards that in the nearest future?

 

Of course, you can classify LASU as one of those forward looking institutions. I will confirm to you that we started our examinations online with our postgraduate students and as at yesterday, Sunday, August 30, our MBA students had completed their examination online.

 

We were doing both objective and subjective tests. This is because the software we have is such that we are able to do retail on    line invigilation so that through the platform we can watch our students as they write the examinations. And, if a student is doing something we don’t like we call such a student that there is a third party there with him or her.

 

Again, because of the software we are able to put in place, we also have plagiarism checks that we use to mark the scripts of our students. So, as we finished with our postgraduate students we can now go on with our undergraduate students.

 

In case of those who cannot participate in the online classes, what has the university put in place to accommodate such students, now that it has to do with examinations?

 

That was why when we were to start the online examinations; we started with the postgraduate students. What we intend to do is that now that we are resuming after the University Senate would have taken a decision in line with what Mr. Governor has directed, we will now go ahead to have face-toface interaction with our students for a period of time, which will be more or less, meeting the backlog of what is left out there with tutorials since about 65 per cent of the students were already part of it. It will not be a totally new thing to that class when we start the physical class.

 

Again, the face-to-face which we are going to have will be the hybrid type. For very large classes, we will still continue to deploy our online platforms, but for smaller classes we will have face-to-face. Unlike the GNS class, which is a very large class, those ones will continue to use the online platform. But for smaller classes, we will have face-to-face teaching.

 

Now, let us talk about the resumption of students as directed by the governor, how are you going about it?

 

Well, we have also done a gradual phasing of how our students are going to resume. We are starting with 400, 500, 600-Level students, which is going to run for two months and it will be  intensive as we will start lectures by 9am and close at 3pm because of those of them that live off campus. And immediately we are through with those final year groups, we will go on to the 300 and 200-Level students.

 

Of course, the way we intend to do it for this set of students is that on Mondays and Wednesdays, the 300-Level students will be on campus, while on Tuesdays and Thursdays, the 200-Level students will be on campus so that we will be able to maintain social distancing on campus and classes.

 

We have done the audit of our facilities; we know what each of our classrooms/lecture theatres can take. We know the number of students that will be coming in for 300-Level, 200-Level so that at the end of the day, we are able to protect the life of our students and staff from the pandemic.

 

Is there any provision in the university health centre in case there is any suspected case?

 

Yes, in terms of the NCDC requirements for medical facilities, we have already put in place the COVID-19 Committee to monitor activities and keep the university on its toes to ensure compliance.

 

Part of what we have also done is that we have put in place all the necessary things as it has to do with hand washing equipment, sanitisers and the use of face masks, which are going to be very strict, and besides we also have isolation places on campus.

 

What is going to happen to 200 and 300-Level students in terms of duration if the final year group is to spend two months?

 

We already have phasing for the resumption of this group of students and I think they are going to be in for two months as well before they start their examination because we want to make sure that we are able to kit everyone. Again, as we go on, we will maintain flexibility so that if we need to teach and since these are challenging times, we must be in the understanding of issues that may come to the fore at the different time.

 

Is the university looking at the issues of hostel accommodation and overcrowding?

 

Of course yes. For a place like the College of Medicine and the Epe campus where we have the Faculty of Engineering and School of Agriculture, where students are in residence this is where the advantage of gradual phasing will come in place. You can imagine a facility that is in use by all students, now being dedicated for only 200-Level students, 300-Level students, and 400-Level students to 600-Level students at different times.

 

What we did before this phasing is to look at the number of students in these different areas and also at the facilities we have. In the first instance, this was what informed the phasing we have done so that in a hall where ordinarily you have four students we are going to make sure we don’t have more than two students in that place. Where we have two students, we are going to have one student occupying that hostel space. Those are the kind of things we are doing.

 

As stated earlier, we have made provision for regular hand washing, compulsory use of face masks, we have provided barometer buckets everywhere, and the Director of Health Services has also ensured and put in place waiting areas and consulting rooms that are well-ventilated on our campuses.

 

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