ASUU Strikes, Education and Algorithms

Mr. David, now in his early 60s, has his last two children at 100 level in a Nigerian university. They have been sitting idle at home since March. Due to recurrent ASUU strikes, it looks like they will spend six or seven years to graduate from their four-year degree programmes as did their elder brothers and sisters.

David is tired of the burden of children education and is eager to rest in his remaining days. So he sees the seven years his children would spend in the university like the seven lean years of Egypt in the story of Joseph (PBUH). He may be 70 when they graduate. This was not his calculation twenty years ago when he decided to stop his further reproduction of children.

What if he can get them educated without the hands of ASUU?

The Idea

Then his son, Solomon, brought an idea. He told the father that Nigerian universities have started online degrees as their overseas counterparts. “Why not enroll them and get them taught by algorithms that don’t go on strike and can graduate them from the comfort of their home within three years?” Solomon suggested.

The father did not stop blessing Solomon all night for the brilliant idea. The search for admission into online degrees at home or abroad has already started. Both children are in the arts; so online courses will just be perfect.

Algorithms

We may be just in the last years of campus-based learning as we know it. The academia, like industry and many other fields, will soon be conquered by the pervasive army of algorithms. Both Ribadu and Amina Halls will become less inhabited. Even in science and engineering-based courses, there will not be the need to remain on campus all year. Students will be coming in batches for workshops and practicals of a month or two and that is all. Hospitals will continue to be there for clinicals. High-caliber teachers can be accessed from 12,000 km away, and lessons will be going on 24/7, as the student wishes.

In the world of algorithm, distance is conquered, borders are open and labour is silenced. Numbers do not go on strike. All the notorious problems that impede learning are incinerated into thin air: No classroom or hostel congestion, no off-campus life, no armed robbers, no kidnappers, no handouts, no victimization, no sexual harassment. There will only be fees, computers and connectivity.

The most assuring thing is that nothing can stop this invasion once the demand and the means are there. The demand is here: students and parents who are eager to graduate in record time. Then an infrastructure that is affordable to students: computers, tablets, handsets, etc. as well as high-speed connectivity, including 5G that is just an inch away, and the solar energy required to power the devices when ‘NEPA’ proves stubborn, all getting cheaper and cheaper by the day, thanks to the Asian Tigers.

Survival of the Fittest

I see the Nigerian academic environment exploding—some mischief makers would say, imploding—with digital learning. Fewer and fewer candidates will enroll for the wahala of in-classroom courses when their online versions are available, as the availability becomes increasingly available.

The army of algorithms will devastate many institutions that cannot grapple with the global competition amongst schools at different levels—from primary to tertiary. A student from Bayelsa or Borno can now be admitted into, and graduate from a world prestigious institution without stepping out of his town.

In the global world of algorithms, the market police of Adam Smith will arrest all poor institutions and hand them over to Lord Darwin, who will serve them death sentences according to his brutal ‘survival of the fittest’ doctrine.

The battle for survival in the world of algorithms for our institutions and lecturers will be fierce. It is a challenge that we must stand up to, as I repeatedly point out in any institution or office where I am privileged to offer my views. We better wake up.

Policy

Some of our universities have already started harvesting from the treasure of online courses. The revenue they get from them is in multiples of the fees they charge their conventional, in-classroom learners. The promising dividends are making them to push harder, reaching out to every willing candidate. Others will soon wake up and the fight for enrollment will become ferocious.

Our Federal administration, especially the one coming in next year, must make digital learning one of its too priorities. The efforts of the present government like the introduction of EMIS, Nigeria Learning Passport and other digital solutions must be sustained to perfection.

Though its success for now is more apparent at the tertiary learning, the problems that digital learning will solve at basic and secondary levels are just too many to ignore: the issue of distance that cut down enrollment by up to half at every transition step; of unqualified, incompetent and truant teachers; of insufficient and delapidated classrooms; of scarce furniture, equipment, teaching and safeguard materials; of boarding schools and their feeding wahala; of meagre wages and bloated payrolls; etc. These problems will be declared persona non grata in the virtual world of e-learning.

New problems will emerge, but they will be far easier to handle, like comparing the digital to analogue. In any case, the former is faster, effective, transparent and egalitarian. How else could an illiterate village housewife acquire a telephone, were it not for the genius of Al-Khawarizmi?

Students of the analogue era may accuse of me of crying wolf where there is none. Inertia may not allow them see the approaching revolution. But here is an analogy. NITEL never took GSM a serious threat. But before it could find its feet, it was swept away by the avalanche of the new technology—forever. NITEL buildings in Nigeria today look desolate, like the ruins that often featured in the ancient poetry of Arabia.

The Dawn

This is not theory or dream. The dawn is here, of a revolution that will contribute to learning more than what the Gutenberg press did to knowledge in 15th Century Europe. It has started already.

Although it will take one or two decades to prevail, you as a parent or student can join it today by a yes in your heart and a click on your computer. Mr. David is there waiting for you.

Muhammad Sagir Ishaq.